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A PEEP AT ST. PAUL'S. 



TH ENGLISH 



BODLET FAMILY 



BY 



HOEACE E. SCUDDER 

AUTHOR OF "THE BOULEY BOOKS" 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 




BOSTON 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

New York : 85 Fifth Ave. 






Copyright, 1883, 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CDt 

All rights reserved. 
.0^ 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge ' 
Electrotyped and Printed by II. 0. Houghton & Co. 






^SL 




CONTENTS OF THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 



•IIAPTER PAGE 

I. AN OLD FRIEND . . 9 

II. A CURIOUS ENCOUNTER 29 

III. OLD AND NEW ENGLAND .43 

IV. A RAINY DAY , . . 62 

V. A COUNTRY WALK 86 

VI. ROUNDHEAD AND CAVALIER 95 

Vn. A PILGRIMAGE 117 

VIIL A GROUP OF WORTHIES 129 

IX. LONDON TOWN 147 

X. A LITTLE CHURCH 178 

XL A LOOK THROUGH WINDOWS , . 189 



THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 



CHAPTER I. 

AN OLD FRIEND. 



On the last day of August, 1881, a party of Americans left Rotter- 
dam, in Holland, by the steamer which sailed for Harwich, in Eng- 
land, and at five o'clock in the morning of Thursday, September first, 
this party landed at Harwich in a sleepy condition, and took the 
Great Eastern Railway direct for London, which they reached in a 
little less than two hours. It was not the first time that Americans 
had landed in England, and so there was no great to-do made over 
them, either in Harwich or at the Liverpool Street station in London, 
where they left the railway train. It was only when they left their 
cabs at Albany Street, in the West End, that these sleepy Americans 
really seemed to wake, and it happened in this wise. 

The house at which they stopped was Mrs. Godolphin's Family 
Hotel, although to the naked eye it could not be distinguished from 
a boarding-house ; here they had secured quarters while they were 
to stay in London, and the door was opened by a neat looking maid 
in a cap, who appeared to have sat up all night waiting for them, for 
she was the only person to be seen up and down the street. Houses 
and people all seemed fast asleep. The maid was very silent, as 



10 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

if she were afraid of waking some one in the house, and the whole 
party went through the doorway ahiiost on tiptoes. They went in 
this order. 

First came a gentleman somewhat over forty years of age, bearing 
a handbag with the initials N. B., which was as much as to say, " Take 
notice, this is Nathan Bodley;" directly behind him walked a boy 
who looked as much like Nathan Bodley as a telescope shut up looks 
like a telescope open, and so it was very clear that the boy was son 
of the man ; if one only happened to know that Nathan Bodley's 
father was named Charles, he would understand in a moment why 
Nathan's son was also named Charles. Charles he was, — Charles 
Bodley. 

Behind Charles Bodley was a girl of exactly the same age. If 
they had been brother and sister they would have been twins ; as it 
was, they sometimes went in the family by the name of the twin 
cousins. Charles Bodley turned to the girl as they all went stealth- 
ily up the steps, and whisjDered hoarsely : " Sarah, if it was a little 
darker T should think I was a burglar." 

" We 're not guilty of flat burglary," said she, " for this house is 
not let out so." 

" It could n't be flatter than that joke," he replied. The conversa- 
tion was not worth repeating, except for the information it gives 
that the girl's name was Sarah. She took her name from her grand- 
mother. Madam Sarah Bodley ; and since she was Charles Bodley's 
cousin, and Charles's father had no brothers, it follows that her name 
was not Bodley but that of her mother's husband. Philippa Bod- 
ley had married Philip Van Wyck, and thus Sarah was Sarah Van 
Wyck. Behind Sarah came her father and mother, and last of all 
was Nathan Bodley's wife, careful Mrs. Blandina Bodley, who always 



AN OLD FRIEND. 11 

was the last, because she stayed behind to rummage the carriage 
and see if any bags or parcels had been left. 

Thus they all passed into the narrow hall which led from the 
doorway, and stood huddled together for a moment in front of the 
hat-tree, and the collection of railway schedules which hung from 
the wall. At this moment Charles Bodley discovered a straw hat, 
a broad Panama, hanging upon one of the limbs of the hat-tree. 

"Ha!" he exclaimed, " Is this a hat which I see before me, the 
rim toward my hand ? Come, let me clutch thee ! Where is the 
head that belongs to this hat ? I should know the hat anywhere." 

"Isn't that just like Ned!" said Mrs. Van Wyck, looking at the 
hat. " Nathan, Ned is here, and has hung his hat up as calmly in 
the public hall as if he were in our house." 

" It was to welcome you," came in a great whisper from the stairs 
above, and in another moment Professor Edward G. Adams, first 
cousin to the Bodleys and second cousin to their children, came 
skipping down the staircase. The maid looked on amused at a re- 
spectful distance as these Americans embraced each other. 

"When did you get here, Ned?" asked Mr. Nathan Bodley. 

" Last night, when you were tossing about on the North Sea.'* 

" We did n't toss at all," said Sarah. " The North Sea is a slan- 
dered piece of water." 

" I wish the Atlantic were," said Cousin Ned, with a sigh. " How- 
ever I 'm over here now, and England may have another revolution 
before I venture out of sight of land again." 

" Your rooms are ready, please," said the maid, and off they went 
to make ready for an early breakfast. Professor Adams had joined 
his cousins in England, after they had spent a summer in traveling, 
and meant to stay with them a month, for in spite of his cowardly 



12 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

speech his passage was already taken for the steamer which was to 
leave Liverpool on the 29th of September. He had promised himself 
a jaunt in England with them, and for that month they were to go 
where he wanted to ; afterward they might do what they pleased. 

" You see," he said, as they were chatting at breakfast, " I 'm 
a sort of antiquarian society all by myself Our American scholars 
are digging up bones and saucepans in mounds in the West, and lit- 
tle copper gods and what not, and I've not much taste for uncivil- 
ized rubbish. I prefer the rubbish which belonged to my own fam- 
ily, and I 've a mind to see if I can't dig up Sir Walter Raleigh, or 
Adam Winthrop, or some other pre-United States American. I shall 
need some aid, and I propose to take these children along with me. 
Now I have one sublime idea, it 's the only original notion in archae- 
ology that I ever had, and it 's so simple that I hardly dare mention 
it. But I must keep it shut away until next week at any rate. 
Come, where shall we begin our researches ? " 

" Do give us some notion of where you 're going to drag us for a 
month, Ned," said Mr. Van Wyck. " I am reasonably trustful, but 
I should like to know where I am to have my letters sent from time 
to time." 

" Be quite at ease, Philip, I don't mean to go much beyond the 
telegraph line in this wild country. I '11 tell you in general my plan. 
I want to look up some of the beginnings of America in England. 
I 'm getting ready to write my book on Earlier America, and I wish 
to see if I cannot find a few of the foot-prints of the first Americans 
here. They left the country between two and three hundred years 
ago, but they must have left some signs behind them." 

" We saw some marks of a number nine shoe in Holland," said 
Charles Bodley. 



AN OLD FRIEND. 13 

" To be sure. Holland was one of the stepping-stones to Amer- 
ica." 

" And one of the jumping off places, too," said Sarah. 

" The softest spot to jump from ! " said Charles, with mock dis- 
dain. " However, I never again shall find fault with the Dutch for 
coming to New York. Poor people ! no wonder they wanted to 
leave Holland." 

" You know you did n't want to leave yourself," said his cousin. 
*' The very last thing you said when we left was, ' We bid you an 
affectionate farewell.' " 

" So I did. I was so glad " — 

" Come, come, children ! eat your breakfast and stop sparring," 
said Mr. Bodley. " Ned we '11 give you the children to-day if you 
want them. Philip and I want to go to Alexanders' to get our letters 
and some money." 

" And Blandina and I want to go to Regent Circus to spend it," 
said Mrs. Van Wyck. 

" Well, while your mothers go to the Circus," said Ned, " we '11 go 
to the Tower and see the lions." 

'"' I suppose," said Charles, " that if we are to begin our historical 
researches in England, we might as well begin as far back as the 
Tower. But if that was a real circus that mother was going to, the 
Tower could wait. On the whole I 'm resigned to the Tower, though 
I know Sarah wants to go shopping. Own up, Sarah." 

" I may look into a shop window on the way to the Tower," said 
she. 

To the Tower then they went, and as it was not a free day they 
paid their shilling apiece, which was to admit them into special 
rooms and buildino-s. 



14 



THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 



" Who are these extraordinary-looking lunatics ? " whispered Sa- 
rah to her cousin Ned, as they saw some substantial looking Eng- 
lishmen in curious costume, with hats trimmed with bits of ribbon, 
who appeared to be on duty within the Tower. 

" They are the warders of the Tower, and go by the name of beef- 
eaters." 




"Is that their chief occupation?" asked Charles. 

" They look well fed, but their name is a corruption of hiffetiers ; 
the Yeomen of the Guard in King Henry VIII.'s time were personal 
attendants of the sovereign, who stood near the royal sideboard or 
Ivffet: These fellows wear the dress which the yeomen wore then. 
Look hard at them, Sarah. They won't mind it, and if you shut your 
eyes to everything else, and especially don't look at yourself and 
Charles, why, you can fmcy yourself living at the time when the 



AN OLD FRIEND. 15 

Cabots were hunting for America. John Cabot looked on just such 
people as our friends here." 

Sarah and Charles did as their cousin told them, and looked so 
hard at the beef-eaters that one of them, a good-natured fellow, 
smiled and half nodded in return for the scrutiny he was undergo- 
ing. He was standing near by and now stepped forward and spoke 
to Mr. Adams. 

" They never saw a beef-eater before, eh ? You don't have them 
in America?" 

Charles and Sarah looked at each other. " It 's Cousin Ned's hat," 
whispered Charles. 

" You guess quickly," said their cousin Ned, " This young lady is 
from Holland, and the young gentleman is from England." 

" Indeed, I 'd never have thought it." 

" To be sure, they left some time ago, and they 've been in Amer- 
ica ever since." 

" Oh, well now ; that makes it plain." 

" Yes, they left in the seventeenth century." 

The beef-eater stared at this serious looking gentleman with spec- 
tacles, who stood so calmly under his Panama hat saying such non- 
sensical things. 

" Oh, ah, yes, to be sure ; quite so," he said at length. " So their 
ancestors went to America." 

" I should n't wonder if you 'd had some of their ancestors here," 
said Cousin Ned, looking about him. 

" Well, now," said the beef-eater, who was by no means a dull fel- 
low, " was n't there a General Burgoyne who fought in your Revolu- 
tion?" 

" To be sure there was," said Charles promptly ; " we beat him at 
Saratoga." 



16 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

" I thought I 'd heard something of the kind once," said the beef- 
eater. "Americans have mentioned it before. Now I served under 
his son, Field Marshal, Sir John Fox Burgoyne. I was with him 
at Sebastopol. He was a fine man and a great soldier. I '11 show 
you where he 's buried." 

" Was he buried here in the Tower ? " asked Cousin Ned in sur- 
prise. 

" To be sure, sir," said the beef-eater as he led the way. " He 
was Constable of the Tower, like the Duke of Wellington before him, 
and he 's buried beneath the altar at St. Peter's. There 's others lie 
there too. Two queens and two dukes, and many great and noble 
ones." 

The beef-eater said this with great impressiveness, and as they 
came to the door of the church, he stopped them and pointed to a 
large oval of dark flints in the pavement. 

" D' ye see that ? " said he. " There 's many a drop of blood has 
wet the pavement here. This was the place where the private exe- 
cutions took place. Here fell Anne Boleyn, and Lady Jane Grey, 
and the Earl of Essex." 

The children looked with awe on the spot, and carefully walked 
around it when they went into the little church. A drummer boy 
was there, looking about at the monuments ; he had apparently 
come in from some pageant or funeral procession, and was so young 
and fresh that he made a strong contrast to the old warder, who 
was making his way to the chancel. The boy stood looking at a 
stone in the pavement, and the beef-eater stepped to his side. 

" Ay, my lad, here 's the end of all service ! " said he, as he pointed 
to Sir John Burgoyne's grave. " He was a fine man, sir," he went 
on to Cousin Ned and his party, " He was pretty deaf when he 







THE BEEF-EATER AND THE DRUMMER BOY. 



AN OLD FRIEND. 19 

was an old man. but he was a cheerful old soul. I mind me of some 
lines he wrote. 

" ' You wish me a happy New Year, as a toast, 
And a kindly good act it appears ; 
But when you perceive I 'm as deaf as a post, 
You should wish me two happy new 'ears.' " 

The beef-eater was so pleased with his company that he kept on 
with them in their rounds, and took them to see the celebrated 
places in the Tower, though there was no need of a guide, for every- 
thing was labeled, and there were guide-posts and signs in every 
direction. They saw the Traitor's Gate, and went into the quaint 
Norman chapel of St. John's. They visited the room where the 
crown jewels were kept, and looked through the show case, with its 
heavy iron bars, at the dazzling crowns, and maces, and salt-cellars, 
and cups, and garters, and all the other barbarous or beautiful jew- 
elry which the English empire owns and exhibits for a sixpence. 
They walked through the armories, where were wooden knights in 
armor and all manner of curious and hideous weapons. 

" It does n't seem to me that these knights were so very large," 
said Charles, as he stood before one of the dummies loaded down 
with iron mail. 

" No," said Cousin Ned, " I have been looking at these gentlemen 
on foot and on horseback, and I don't think any one of them is 
larger than I am, certainly not larger than our good friend, the 
warder here." 

" There were giants in those days," said the beef-eater, solemnly. 

" Yes, so we always say, but we imagine them to have been big, 
because they lived so long ago and hacked away at each other so 
constantly. But if these figures are truthful, they were rather un- 
dersized." 



20 



THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 



" They must have been very uncomfortable," said Sarah. " I 
should think that when they fought they would merely have tum- 
bled against each other like Punch and Judy." 

" Each was as badly off as his neighbor," said her cousin Ned. 
"There is always just about as much power of resistance as of at- 
tack. When a heavier gun is invented, a heavier armor plate is 
made for a ship's side. Gunpowder, however, put an end finally to 
these iron suits of clothes. They were only useful against iron 
spears and swords." 

They saw room after room decorated with guns and bayonets 

and swords and pistols, arranged with 
elaborate ingenuity in all manner of 
figures, but nothing could make these 
beautiful. 

" They are all cruel and horrid," said 
Sarah, with a shudder, as they came to 
an end of the glittering steel. 

" Yes," said Cousin Ned, "and it's an 
insult to art to arrange them in arches 
and columns and paneled ceilings. It 
is quite as juvenile as making houses 
out of tape and buttons, as the dry 
goods stores do in their windows." 
Among their wanderings they came to a cell leading out from 
one of the rooms in the White Tower. 

" Here," said the beef-eater, " Sir Walter Raleigh was confined." 
" Ah," said Charles, " we 've found a real American at last." 
" The walls are fourteen feet thick " said the beef-eater. 




Sir Walter Raleigh. 



AN OLD FRIEND. 21 

" ' Stone walls do not a prison make, 
Nor iron bars a cage ; 
Minds innocent, and quiet, take 
That for an hermitage,' " 

said Cousin Ned ; " but, Mr. Warder, critics tell us now that Sir 
Walter never lived in this little den. You must learn to generalize 
in your historical facts, and be content to say that Sir Walter Ra- 
leigh lived for fourteen years or more in the Tower, and his wife 
and two sons lived with him. It was here that he wrote his ' His- 
tory of the World.' " 

" Was it after he had come back from Virginia ? " asked Charles. 

" Raleigh never went to Virginia," said his cousin, " but he sent 
out expeditions, which met with miserable failure. None the less 
he was one of the great Englishmen who dreamed of an English em- 
pire in America, and his dream had a good deal to do with bringing 
that empire to pass." 

" We don't know that we have stepped in his foot-print, then," said 
Sarah. 

" No, but as we have walked pretty well about the Tower and its 
grounds, I think we must have crossed Sir Walter's tracks some- 
where. At any rate, we 've had our friend, the warder, to look at, 
and it was just such a jailer that Sir Walter had. I hope his jailer 
was as good-natured." 

The beef-eater gave a grim smile. 

" We don't shut up people here now," said he, " except an unruly 
soldier in the guard-house, but we shut up the Tower just the same." 

" Do you go round and lock up every night, like a good house- 
keeper ? " asked Ned ; " and see that all the doors and windows are 
fastened ? " 



22 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

" Well, we do, sir," said the beef-eater. " Every night, just before 
the clock strikes eleven, sir, the head warder, in a long red cloak, 
with his big bunch of keys, comes along with another warder, who 
carries a lantern, and goes up to the main guard-house. Then he 
calls out ' Escort keys,' and out comes the sergeant of the guard 
with half a dozen men, and they follow them out to the outer gate. 
Every sentry they pass gives the challenge, ' Who goes there ? ' 
* Keys,' says the warder, and they go on. Well, sir, they lock and 
bar every gate, and they come back in the same order, until at 
last they come to the main guard-house again. Then the sentry 
gives a loud stamp with his foot, and asks, 'Who goes there?' 
' Keys,' says the warder. ' Whose keys ? ' says the sentry. ' Queen 
Victoria's keys,' says the warder. ' Advance, Queen Victoria's keys, 
and all 's well,' says the sentry. ' God bless Queen Victoria ! ' says 
the head warder, and the guard responds, • Amen ! ' Then the officer 
on duty gives the word ' Present arms ! ' the guns rattle and the 
officer kisses the hilt of his sword. The escort fall in among the 
rest of the soldiers, and the head warder marches across the parade 
to deposit the keys in the lieutenant's lodgings. There 's a wicket 
open in the outer gate till twelve o'clock, but there 's no getting in 
or out after that." 

" Dear me ! " said Charles, " what a lot of ceremony ; I suppose it 's 
just the same as Queen Victoria's going round England every night 
and locking up. Do you do it every night ? " 

" Every single night," said the beef-eater. " They say there *s not 
been a riot in London from Jack Cade down to the Chartist riot 
in '48, but the leaders were planning to seize the Tower." 

" I suppose they wanted to help themselves to the arms," said 
Charles. 



AN OLD FRIEND. 25 

"And the sleeve-buttons and other trinkets," added Sarah. 

" Well, we shall sleep easily to night," said Cousin Ned, " when we 
know that the Tower is well locked up. Shall you be on duty to- 
night?" he asked the beef-eater. 

" Ay sir, I shall be in the guard." 

" We 're ever so much obliged to you for going round with us, and 
as you '11 have to be up so late, I think you'll need a bit of comfort," 
and Ned shook hands warmly with him, and left something in his 
palm. The warder took off his hat with its blue and yellow ribbons 
as the three nodded good-by to him and passed out of the gateway. 

"What a sensation there must have been in London," said 
Charles, " when people came back with news about America, in Sir 
Walter Raleigh's time." 

"Yes, indeed," said his cousin. "People did not travel then as 
they do now, and there were no newspapers to tell every day what 
was happening all over the world the day before. It is hard for 
us to realize the prodigious impression which the stories of the new 
world made upon men then. It must have seemed as if anything 
might happen. The gentlemen who came back from Virginia went 
to court and told their stories, and the sailors told theirs in the inns, 
and I fancy that most of the stories were stretched in the telling." 

" It would have been more strange," said Sarah, " if the Ameri- 
cans of those days had come to England." 

"Some of them did. You remember that Pocahontas did, for one, 
and there used to be signs at inns in London which bore the figure 
of the Indian Queen, as she was called. People were very carious to 
see her, and watched for her when she came upon the streets, very 
much as a Japanese or Chinese was stared at a few years ago with 



26 



THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 



US. She came with her Enghsh husband, Rolfe, and several other 
Indians were with them. They came over partly to be educated, 
but Powhatan, the father of Pocahontas, sent one of them, it is said, 
to find out all about England. The story goes that he began to cut 
notches in a stick, to count up the people whom he saw, but gave 

it up as a hopeless affair. The Eng- 
lish called the Indian chief by fine 
names. Old Powhatan was an em. 
peror, they said, and they made a 
great fuss over him. You know they 
even sent him out a crown to wear. 
They took all their notion of Indians 
in America, from China and India, and 
it is very hard for the English to get 
ideas out of their heads after they are 
once in. Pocahontas was j)resented 
at court, and King James shook his 
head a little at one of his subjects 
marrying into a royal family. They 
Pocahontas. madc somcthiug of the same kind of 

fuss here over Queen Emma, of the Hawaiian Islands, a few years ago. 
There 's a wonde rful amount of glory about the name of king or 
queen to an Englishman. However, Pocahontas appears to have 
been a very sensible sort of girl. Poor thing ! she pined away in 
England, and died before she could get back to Virginia. She was 
buried in a church at Gravesend, but the church was long ago 
burned." 

" We seem to have begun near the beginning, Cousin Ned, in our 
historical researches," said Charles. " Virginia was the first English 
colony." 




AN OLD FRIEND. 



27 



" We ought to have gone to Spain," said Sarah. 
" Or to Norway, to find a Viking ship," said Cousin Ned. 
" Oh, we 're going to Norway next summer. I suppose we shall 
be at the head-waters of American history then." 




Pocahoirtas at Court. 



" There is more than one point from which we might start," said 
his cousin, " in studying American history ; but wherever we begin, 
we should find it possible to go a little ffirther back. The begin- 
ning of Christianity would not be too far back to go." 



28 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

" That 's the trouble with history," said Sarah, with a sigh. " You 
never can get at the beginning of it." 

" It 's like a person," said Charles, philosophically. " If you give 
liis biography, you have to tell who his father and mother were, and 
it 's only a matter of convenience to stop there." 

" Very true, and so if we were studying the English settlement in 
America, we might keep goiug back and back to explain what sort 
of Englishmen they were who went to America, and why they 
went." 

" They were pushed off," said Charles, sententiously. His cousin 
laughed. 

"They were both pushed and pulled, Charles. When Euglishmen 
began to flock to America, it was not only because England some- 
times wanted to get rid of them ; to aret rid of the Puritans or to o-et 
rid of the beggars and homeless people, but because there was a 
^reat attraction in a new land. All sorts of wonderful things might 
be there, and especially there would be room there for those who 
were crowded at home, and there might be riches for the poor. It 
is just so to-day. Multitudes are leaving Europe for America, partly 
because they have a hard time in Europe, and partly because their 
friends in America, who have gone before, invite them by the mes- 
sages they send over." 

" What crowds we have seen marching up Broadway with bundles 
on their heads and in their hands," said Sarah. 

" Yes, from Walter Raleigh's time down, England and a good part 
of Europe have been moving over, bringing their bundles with 
them ; but, after all, the best and most important things they have 
brought have not been in their bundles, for they have brought over 
institutions, and laws, and beliefs, and. manners, and customs." 



A CURIOUS ENCOUNTER. 29 

"We 've some institutions of our own," said Cliarles, stoutly. 

" So we have, and a great deal of the best there is in America has 
grown up out of the life people have led there ; but it never must 
be forgotten that our freedom and government and civilization gen- 
erally have been built upon the ideas that Englishmen brought over 
with them. We are a continuation of old England." 

" And Holland," added Sarah. 

"To be sure, and of the old world in general. There's no such 
thing as a brand new nation, made out of new people. We say that 
the United States was born on the Fourth of July, 1776; but that's 
only a convenient way of saying that on that day the nation, which 
had been growing ever since the earliest colonies were born here, 
had come of age. It was its Freedom ' day,' as used to be said of 
boys when they were twenty-one years of age." 

''Well," said Charles, cheerfully, " I 'm glad we 're not a colony of 
England still." 

" It would be awkward," said his cousin. " I think it would make 
us feel like men in jackets and women in pinafores." 



CHAPTER 11. 

A CURIOUS ENCOUNTER. 



This party of Bodleys, Van Wycks, and Adams was in light march- 
ing order. They were such old travelers that they had reduced all 
their luggage to the smallest possible compass, and only needed a 
half hour at any time to make themselves ready for a journey to 
Nijni Novgorod or Afghanistan. The language in such cases would 



30 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

be the only preparation not to be included in half an hour. So it 
caused no special commotion when Mr. Bodley proposed the next 
morning that they should go to Warwick for Sunday, stopping over 
night at Oxford, and giving that place parts of two half days. They 
left Mrs. Godolphin's Family Hotel shortly after noon, and whizzed 
away to Oxford in an express train, which took them the fifty-four 
miles in an hour and a quarter without stopping. 

"I put up at the Mitre when I was here in '65," said Mr. Bodley, 
" but I think we '11 go to the Randolph this time. It is more like a 
college building than the Mitre, and I wish to feel as scholastic as 
possible." 

" Yes," said Professor Adams, " this generation has felt the weight 
of the old Oxford architecture. It has thought about it and dreamt 
of it so much that when it has set about building a hotel or a shop 
here, it has been unable to get rid of the college idea. The Ran- 
dolph now might be mistaken for a college building." 

" It looks as much like a college," said Mrs. Phippy Van Wyck, 
"as the vergers in the cathedrals look like the dean and chapter. I 
could easily mistake the one for the other until my sixpence was 
wanted." 

" Just so," said her brother. " Now when the Mitre was built, 
the country cottage appears to have been the model, and nobody 
thought of being ecclesiastical. But we have changed all that. 
Time was when the church and the kins-dom and the nobleman had 
all the great buildings, now everybody wants to have his share of 
greatness." 

The Randolph was as comfortable as it was stately. They put 
their few bags and belongings aside in their rooms and sallied out 
ior a walk. 



A CURIOUS ENCOUNTER. 31 

" We '11 only take the outside of the town to-day," said Professor 
Adams. " We will walk about this Jericho till we are tired and let 
the walls fall flat to-morrow." 

" Somehow it seems very familiar," said Mrs. Bodley. 

"Yes," said her husband. "It's like London in that respect; w^e 
all feel at home in London as soon as we begin to walk about the 
streets. I suppose that what we know of London and Oxford is not 
merely what we have already seen, but the whole sum of our read- 
ing and imagination added to our sight. The sights are fresh, but 
they answer immediately to some intellectual knowledge we already 
have." 

" Oh, here 's Maudlin College ! " said Mrs. Bodley. 

" Exactly," said her husband, surveying it, but refusing to give up 
his little speech. " Exactly. You had seen a picture of Maudlin, 
and had it already in your mind." 

" But it does not look just as I had imagined it would." 

"No; the imaginary object was a little out of line, and you are 
trying to adjust the focus." 

" It is like a stereoscopic picture, Phil," said Mr. Nathan Bodley, 
" made up one half of a real, one half of an imaginary picture, 
and both together blend into one perfect pleasure." 

" That's nearly it, Nathan, though it's a little mixed." 

" I don't think I shall try to describe Oxford," said Mrs. Bodley 
with a sigh. " The charm is indefinable." 

" No," said her husband, " if you were to empty a guide-book 
into your journal, you would still fail to convey the impression the 
place makes upon you." 

" It 's the repetition in so many forms of the scholastic idea," said 
Mr. Van Wyck. " That is presented in stone and brick in the most 



32 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

diverse fashion, but there is a unity in the midst of all this diver- 
sity. The arches, the walls, the inclosures, the towers, the bells^ 
the windows, the sculpture, all these illustrate that combination of 
church and school and home which the university supposes." 

"It's half monkish still," said Cousin Ned, "and how completely 
the university makes the town. I 've no doubt there are some ex- 
cellent people here who don't care a copper about the colleges ; but 
then the world does not care a copper for them, and would not cross 
the ocean to see them." 

" I suppose it is the lasting of the mind in stone through all these 
centuries that affects us," said Mr. Nathan Bodley. " I don't think 
the castles and forts, which represent force, impress us nearly as. 
much as these college buildings, which represent mind," 

The children had caught some of this conversation, but they had 
been perplexed by one word. 

" That college was n't for crazy students, was it ? " asked Charles 
of Sarah. 

" Perhaps they put the drunken ones away there, when they are 
getting over their wickedness. Father, why Maudlin ? " 

" You must ask an Englishman, Sarah. He spells it Magdalen,, 
but the English language here is one thing when it is spelled and 
another when it is pronounced." 

" How foolish it would be to expect anything else," said Cousin 
Ned. "It is just as impossible to get all people to pronounce alike 
as to make them all mean the same thing when they use the sam« 
word. No two violins will j)roduce exactly the same sound, and no 
two human beings will pronounce a word exactly alike." 

" I think I can make myself understood when I pronounce the 
word dinner," said Sarah demurely, and they all laughed and agreed 



A CURIOUS ENCOUNTER. 33 

that they were at this moment thinking of the same dinner, for 
they had been walking in and out of the streets and lanes, and were 
reasonably hungry, and ready to make their way by the nearest 
route to the Randolph. 

In the same dining-room where they were seated there was an- 
other party of a gentleman and two children who w^ere of the age 
apparently of Charles and Sarah, and, like them, were a boy and girl. 

" Charles," whispered Sarah, " I don't want them to hear, but I 
really think that boy looks a little bit like you." Charles crooked 
his little finger to Sarah under the table. 

" Hook on," he whispered. " I was just remarking that to myself 
of the girl. She certainly looks like you, Sarah. There 's no mir- 
ror in that direction, is there ? " 

" Don't look so hard over there. It is rude. But I hope I shall 
not meet that boy in the dark and think it is you." 

" No, he would not like his hair to be gently pulled, and then 
turn about and think for a moment it was that gentle sister of his." 

The other family had been looking stealthilj^ at our friends, but 
they had begun their dinner earlier and were the first to leave the 
room, so that Charles and Sarah could speak more freely, and they 
began at once to ask their parents eagerly if they had not noticed 
the likeness. 

"They were like and they were different," said Sarah. "I can't 
explain it, but I feel as if I had seen them before." 

" Thaf s always the way," said Cousin Ned. " I 've been per- 
plexed ever since I came over with the likeness of English people 
to my friends in America. I have already met the shadows of half 
my intimate friends." 

" Depend upon it," said Sarah, " they are English Bodleys. They 



34 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

can't be Van Wycks, I suppose, so I '11 abandon them to Charles. 
They're your cousins, Charles." 

" By what remove ? " 

" Oh, by an Atlantic remove." 

The}^ did not see the English Bodleys, as they amused themselves 
with calling them, after dinner, nor again at breakfast the next 
morning. 

" Where is the summer ? " asked Charles, as he drew on a light 
overcoat. " Cousin Ned, we have n't had a hot day since we came 
over, so far as I remember, and it 's really chilly this morning." 

" Hot weather and ice are necessities in America, and luxuries 
over here," said Cousin Ned. " But come, let us make our proces- 
sion and see if we can't effect an entrance through some breach into 
Jericho this morning." 

" I know where I want to go," said the boy, as they went along. 
" I just want to see the Bodleian Library." 

" That 's a noble ambition," said his father, " and I really think it 
would not be showing respect to one of the great heads of our fam- 
ily if we did not visit his library." 

" Nathan," said his sister, " don't you remember a visit we made 
once to Aunt Lucy in Newburyport, and how we found the grave of 
the Rev. John Boddily ? " 

" To be sure. That is the way, Aunt Lucy said, that some of the 
family spelled their name in England. I am very much pleased 
that a Bodley should actually have founded a library." 

" Well," said Cousin Ned, " if all your adventures, Phippy, when 
you were a child, had been written out, and then the adventures of 
these grandchildren added, there would have been quite a Bodleian 
Library by this time." 



A CURIOUS ENCOUNTER. 35 

" Let us be thankful they were not," said Mrs. Van Wyck. " I 
should be sorry to hear people talk about those tiresome Bodley 
books. Now this is something worth while," she added, for they 
had climbed the staircase of the library and stood within the hall. 

" Your ancestor was a most excellent man," said Cousin Ned. 
" I don't know hov/ much he had to do with arranging affairs so 
that Sarah here should be half Dutch, but he was the English min- 
ister to the Hague at one time." 

" I have no doubt he talked with one of my Van Wyck ances- 
tors," said Sarah, '" and recommended him to go over to New Am- 
sterdam." 

" It would have been a remarkably forehanded recommendation, 
Sarah, for Sir Thomas Bodley founded this library in 1598, after he 
had returned from Holland, and he died in 1612." 

" Very well, I abandon him at once," said Sarah. " I only let him 
sit at table with one of my ancestors to gratify Charles. But look, 
Charles, there are our English Bodleys, come to look up their li- 
brarian, or whatever he was." The gentleman and children whom 
they had seen the evening before were just passing out of the li- 
brary and looked back with a half recognition at the Americans. 

" I wish we could see a portrait of Sir Thomas Bodley," said 
Charles, " and see if these people look like him. I am confident 
they are his descendants." 

" There is a portrait in the picture gallery," said Cousin Ned, 
and up stairs they went into the picture gallery, which was also a 
museum. 

" Here is Guy Fawkes's lantern," exclaimed Sarah, " very sol- 
emnly certified to. See, it was given to the university by the son 
of the man who took it from Guy. I wish we had the bit which 
was in the mouth of the horse that Paul Revere rode." 



36 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

" This is an American relic," said Charles, calling the party to 
him. '' Here is a chair made from the timbers of Sir Francis 
Drake's ship. I shall proceed to sit in it. Now, Cousin Ned, before 
I go any farther, I really must pay my respects to Sir Thomas 
Bodley. Show us his portrait." 

The portrait of the English knight was a fine one, and the family 
all stood looking at it, and expressing their admiration of it. While 
they were thus engaged the gentleman and his two children, who 
had preceded them, also came up and stood looking at it. Sarah 
and Charles looked at them out of the corners of their eyes, and 
mentally made comparison of their features. Then they tele- 
graphed to each other that these young people really did look like 
the portrait. Mr. Nathan Bodley, who had watched this play 
with some amusement, turned to the gentleman and said good na- 
turedly : " That 's a fine portrait of the founder of this library." 

" Quite so," said the Englishman. " I 'd rather have my name 
connected with a library than with a — a — brewery, say." 

'' Yes," said Mr. Bodley. " It must be a fine thing for the de- 
scendants of this gentleman to reflect that their name is kept alive 
so honorably." 

The Englishman gave a queer, amused look at his children, and 
then said : " You seem to be interested in Sir Thomas. Have you 
seen his chest ? " 

''No." 

" It is here," said the Englishman's boy, who spoke now for the 
first time, and the whole party followed him, as he led them to a 
large oaken chest, the lid of which was open. 

" What a lock ! " exclaimed Charles. 

" It 's very intricate," said the gentleman. 



A CURIOUS ENCOUNTER. 37 

"But certainly very beautiful," said Mrs. Van Wyck. 

" It is indeed," said he. " The iron is wrought very gracefully. 
I doubt they do anything better in Sheffield to-day." 

" I suppose he kept his books and papers in it when he was in 
Holland/' said Mr. Van Wyck. 

'' Mo doubt," said Charles, with a very grave air, looking at 
Sarah. " That is why he had a patent lock like that." 

'' And why should he need a particularly strong lock in Holland, 
my lad?" asked the gentleman. 

" Oh, I was only teasing my cousin, sir, who is Dutch." 

'^ Ah ! I should not have thought it." 

" That is," pursued Charles, " her ancestors w^ere." 

" Quite so," said the gentleman. 

"Nowl" — 

" Charles," said his mother, at this point, " I want to show you 
this curious washed out picture of Mary Queen of Scots," and so the 
two parties separated with slight bows. 

" You must not fancy that strangers care about your cousin's de- 
.scent," went on Mrs. Bodley. 

" But I wanted to lead the way in conversation," said the boy. 
' In a moment more we should have had all our ancestors down 
and dusted." 

" Yours would have been found to be Paul Pry," said Sarah. 
" I never saw such a boy. He always talks as if we each had just 
one ancestor apiece." 

■ " Well, where there are so many, one is obliged to pick out his 
favorite one," retorted Charles. " You are always boasting of Gov- 
ernor Stuyvesant. As if I had n't Governor Winthrop on my 
side ! " 



38 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

They visited one or two of the more famous college interiors, but 
Cousin Ned insisted stoutly on their not seeing too much. " It 's like 
reading," said he. " Read one book after another without stopping, 
and you will not remember anything but a confused collection of 
facts and names. Now you have seen the Bodleian Library, — of 
course you had to see that, — and Christ Church Hall, and Merton 
Library, and All Souls' Chapel, and when you remember Oxford you 
will remember those interiors." So they went back to the Randolph, 
took a hearty lunch, and were off in the afternoon for Warwick. 

" It is curious, now," said Cousin Ned, as they were rolling along, 
" how one remembers the most casual and insignificant things, and 
forgets the most important. It is ten years since I was in England, 
and I took this same journey ; but I do not remember anything 
about it, except that there was a small boy in the carriage with me 
who had stuffed an apple into his jacket pocket, and worked dili- 
gently for a quarter of an hour trying to pry it out. I watched him 
all the way and finally he had to give it up, and his mother got hin\ 
a cake at Banbury, to make up for his disappointment." 

" Oh, do we go through Banbury ? " asked Sarah. " Shall we see 
Banbury Cross ? " 

" No, nor the cock horse, I am afraid, but if I 'm not greatly mis- 
taken, we shall find cakes sold at the door of the train when we run 
into the station. How does the rhyme go, Sarah ? " 

" ' Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross, 
To see what Tommy can buy ; 
A penny white loaf, a penny white cake, 
And a two-penny apple-pie.' 

What is Banbury Cross, Cousin Ned ? " 

"It isn't any longer, Sarah. It disappeared years ago. It was 



A CURIOUS ENCOUNTER. 39 

one of the holy crosses set up in England, like that at Charing, only 
the Charing Cross is a modern copy of the old cross. During the 
reign of Queen Elizabeth, the Roman Catholics attempted to have a 
religious show out of doors ; but the Puritans, for Banbury was a fa- 
mous Puritan town, fell upon them, and not only drove them off, but 
took axes and hacked down Banbury Cross. And now nothing is 
left but the cakes." 

" Let us hope they are good," said Sarah. But when the train 
stopped, and little peddlers sold the cakes, the children found them 
neither white loaf, white cakes, nor apple-pies, but rather indigesti- 
ble short cakes, with plums in them. However they ate them faith- 
fully, as historical relics, Charles said. 

At Warwick they got into the omnibus which was marked for the 
Warwick Arms, and were set down at the door of that pleasant inn. 
An exceedingly respectable waiter received them at the door, and 
ushered them into the house. 

" You had a letter from me, I suppose," said Mr. Bodley. " I 
wrote from London to engage rooms, Mr. Bodley and party." 

" In a minute, sir," said the waiter, and disappeared, returning 
with a letter addressed to " Mr. Bodley, Warwick Arms." 

" What's this ?" asked Mr. Bodley, puzzled by the letter. " Ask 
the clerk if there was not a letter from Mr. Nathan Bodley, engag- 
ing four rooms." 

At that the landlady, or her sister, or her niece, stepped forward 
with a courtesy. 

" Your rooms are ready, sir," she said. " Tom, they are to have 
the rooms that were made ready this afternoon. Tom did not un- 
derstand, sir. He thought you asked for your letter." 

" Whom is your letter from, Nathan ? " asked his wife, as they 
went along to their rooms. 



40 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

" It is very singular ! " said he, reading the letter ; " have you 
been ordering any books, Blandina ? " 

" Why, no." 

" This is a letter from Mr; Nutt, a bookseller. I was in his shop 
the other day, but I certainly never ordered a copy of Palfrey's 'New 
England.' He writes that he cannot find it, and asks if he shall send 
to America for one. I never asked him to see if he could find one 
in London. I 've got a copy on my shelves at home. It certainly 
is very curious." 

There was an hour yet before it would be time for dinner, and so 
the whole party set out for a ramble through the town. They 
passed under the castle walls, and caught glimpses of the castle ; 
they saw the outside of the Church of St. Mary's and Leicester Hos- 
pital. This was a fine old half-timber group of buildings, and upon 
a bench outside the door, overlooking the street, were three or four 
of the old pensioners, dozing comfortably. The charity dates from 
the time of Queen Elizabeth, when the Earl of Leicester took an old 
religious building and made it an asylum for twelve impotent men, 
who keep alive the memory of the founder by wearing on their old- 
fashioned gowns Leicester's crest of a bear and ragged staff. 

"What a comfortable life these old fellows must lead," said Cousin 
Ned. " I believe the preference is given to men who have been 
wounded in service, and here they doze away the last end of their 
lives." 

" More comfortable, no doubt," said Mr. Van Wyck, " than many 
of the cottagers about here. For my part, while I would not shut 
up any hospitals, I would open a few more house doors. If people 
only knew the blessing there was in having an old man or woman 
in the house, at the fireside, there would be more grandmothers 
adopted than there are." 



A CURIOUS ENCOUNTER. 41 

"You're right, Phil," said his wife. "I would not give up my 
childish recollections of our old nurse Young for a great deal. 
Father brought her back to live with us, after she was too old to 
go out, and she lived and died in our house. She was a great deal 
better than a statue or any other piece of art. When I am old I 
hope to be sufficiently picturesque to my grandchildren to be allowed 
to sit with my cap on by their fireside." 

" Oh, I shall make you very useful, mother," said Sarah. " You 
won't be permitted to sit idle. You will read to your grandchildren 
when they are taking their supper, just as grandmother used to read 
to Charles and me when we were little ; and you will have to water 
the plants. Oh, I know you would be miserable if you were merely 
to sit still and be picturesque." 

They had come back to the Warwick Arms just as the omnibus 
drove up from the station, where it had been to meet another train. 
What was the entertainment of our friends to see their Oxford ac- 
quaintances get out from the omnibus ! The gentleman gave a good- 
natured bow to Mr. Bodley. 

" Ah ! you came on in advance of us, I see," and then, as he went 
in, he said to the waiter, who took his bags, " Is there any letter 
here for me, — for Mr. Bodley ? " 

The waiter looked from one gentleman to the other in a solemn 
fashion, as if he could not quite fathom the mystery. 

" There is," said Mr. Nathan Bodley, upon whom light broke first. 
*' I owe you an apology, sir. My own name is Bodley, and I was 
handed a letter when I came, addressed to Mr. Bodley. It never oc- 
curred to me that there might be two of that name at the Warwick 
Arms at once, and I opened it. It puzzled me extremely, because I 
knew the writer^ but could not make out why he should write me as 



42 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

he did." He handed the letter to the Englishman, as he said this, 
who had listened with a perplexed air, while the children stared hard 
at the other young people. 

" It 's very extraordinary," said he. " Quite so. To be sure. I 
think I 'm not mistaken in saying that you are from America, now?" 

" Yes, we are from America. But you are English ? " 

" I shall be happy to exchange cards with you ; " and with that the 
Englishman pulled out his card which showed him to be Mr. John 
Bodley, living in Salisbury. " I never met before with any of my 
name from America." 

" The Bodley family in America is not large, and I don't think 
many have been over here. Their travels have been confined chiefly 
to America." 

" Quite so. These are my children, John and Margaret." 

Thereupon Mr. Nathan Bodley proceeded to introduce the dif- 
ferent members of his party. 

" You know I was quite amused," said Mr. John Bodley, " when 
you spoke of Sir Thomas Bodley's descendants this morning, for we 
claim him as an ancestor." 

" We fancied we saw a resemblance in your children," said Mrs. 
Van Wyck. " We trace our own ancestry to the family of Sir Thomas, 
and really we made our visit to Oxford as much to see his portrait 
as anything." 

" We must find out our connection," said the Englishman, and so 
after dinner the two parties sat together, and by dint of putting their 
genealogical knowledge into a common stock, made out that there 
were once two Bodley brothers, one of whom stayed in England, and 
from him descended Mr. John Bodley, while the other went to Mas- 
sachusetts and from him came Mr. Nathan Bodley and Mrs. Phippy 
Van Wyck. 



OLD AND NEW ENGLAND. 43- 

" Well," said Charles, as he bade Sarah good-night, " what do you 
think of that boy and girl ? " 

" 1 don't know," said Sarah. " They did n't say much." 

" I can't help thinking how it would be to be English/' said 
Charles. " I know I can't be, and I would n't be anyway, but I 
just wish I knew how it felt." 

And young John Bodley was saying to his sister Margaret at 
the same time : " Madge, I never saw any real Americans before. 
They 're not nearl}' so different from other people as I supposed 
they would be. I wonder now if that boy has ever shot a buffalo." 



CHAPTER ni. 

OLD AND NEW ENGLAND. 



The next day was Sunday, and the entire party of English and 
American Bodleys went to church in St. Mary's Church. There was 
a fine, long nave, which was divided from the choir by a very slight, 
interruption, the choir being nearly of the same breadth, and thus 
the eye could travel a long distance. The party was given seats in 
the broad aisle, and the American children watched the people come 
into church with some curiosity, for they wished to see if it seemed 
like home. It was very much like home, so far as that families had 
their own seats, and came in in companies, and took their places. 
Just at eleven o'clock there was a bustle ; a man wearing a long scar- 
let coat walked quickly up the aisle, and opened the door to a slip 
which ran lengthwise with the aisle and was opposite the children. 



44 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

Then came a man in a long cape cloak of mouse color, bearing a 
gilt or brass mace about two feet high, with a crown at the top. 
This he screwed into position in front of the seat, and then came his 
lordship the Earl, with four or five other gentlemen, followed by 
another long cape-cloaked servant, w-ho could be told from the first 
by a patch over his eye. When the Earl and his party were fairly 
installed, the three servants faced about and marched out of church. 
Charles and Sarah nudged each other. So this was the Earl of War- 
wick. They watched him in his seat, which was surmounted by his 
coat of arms, while before him was a big red cushion for his prayer- 
book. He gaped, he tickled himself, he rubbed his head — he was 
mortal. He looked like a respectable and dull old bank president. 
When service was over the three servants came in, and amongst 
them succeeded in unscrewing the bauble and opening the door, and 
so the Earl of Warwick marched out again. 

" What did you think of the Earl of Warwick, father ? " asked 
Charles, as they walked back to the inn. 

" He seemed quite well behaved. I did n't see him staring at us 
all the service." 

" He 's very quiet in his tastes," said Mr. John Bodley, who was 
walking with them. " He does n't go in for hunting, you know, 
and he's really quite embarrassed. He 's expecting his eldest son, 
who has just married Miss Maynard, the great heiress." 

" How interesting ! " said Mrs. Van Wyck. " You see, Mr. Bod- 
ley, we are Americans, and we can't help being a good deal im- 
pressed by earls. An embarrassed earl now ! it seems almost as 
unnatural as a king out of employment." 

" Oh, I assure you, Mrs. Van Wyck, it 's quite common, quite com- 
mon. But his son will make it all right." 



OLD AND NEW ENGLAND. 45 

" It 's pleasant," said Mrs. Van Wyck, " to think that that excel- 
lent gentleman will not have to spend the rest of his days at Leices- 
ter's Hospital and wear a long blue cloak." 

'' Quite so. Very good. Yes, when the castle was burnt in 
1871, it entailed a heavy loss upon the Earl. Have you seen the 
castle ? " 

" We 've not been inside yet. I thought, perhaps, we should let 
this castle go and find one more out of repair." 

" Very good. Then you should see Kenil worth." 

" We mean to do so while we are here." 

" Now you have no castles in America, Mrs. Van Wyck, but you 
have one very old ruin, — very precious old ruin indeed, — which I 
should like amazingly to see. John, what is the name of that poem 
of Mr. Longfellow's which you learned the other day ? " 

" ' The Skeleton in Armor.' " 

" Yes, yes. That 's a fine ballad, and I understand you still have 
the remains of a tower built by the Norsemen at Newport, in Rhode 
Island. I don't know just how near you live to Newport, but I fancy 
yow know the place." 

" Oh yes, indeed, I have been there, and have seen the old mill." 

" But it 's very old. It 's quite before the time of the landing of 
the Pilgrims, I believe. You see I do know a little about your 
history." 

" If you had only been able to get from Mr. Nutt that copy of 
Palfrey's History," said Mr. Nathan Bodley, '' you would have had 
all your pleasing fancies about the Newport tower sadly destroyed." 

" Dear me ! Why, I sent for Palfrey's History, because I was told 
that was your authority, and I thought I 'd book myself about that 
and some other things. I 've been quite interested in your country 



46 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

of late. This sad business about the President brings us all together 
so, and then my children have been set to reading Longfellow." 

" Well, since you failed to get your Palfrey, Mr. Bodley, I '11 
lend you my cousin here. Mr. Adams is Professor of American His- 
tory and Literature in one of our colleges, and his principal business 
is to knock away all our old ideas and supply us with new ones." 

" I like the new ideas best," said Cousin Ned, " and I always try 
to provide myself with one before I part with the old. Curiously 
enough we are in a very good neighborhood for looking into this 
matter. I thought at first, Mr. Bodley, that you had come here to 
make a historic examination into the Newport tower. I began to 
think you were stealing ' a march on me.' " 

" Why, how now ? " 

" Take a walk with us to-morrow, and I will show you," said 
Cousin Ned. 

" That 's Cousin Ned's secret," exclaimed Sarah. " He told us he 
had a magnificent idea which would come out this week." 

" Not so very magnificent, Sarah," said her cousin. "Pray don't 
expect too great things. I think I said it was the only original idea 
I had had for some time. But really you must n't make too much 
of it. It 's a poor thing, but my own ! " 

The next day the entire party put themselves under Cousin Ned's 
guidance, a little curious as to where he would lead them. They 
were all good walkers, and the day was an admirable one for walk- 
ing. The sun rarely came out from the clouds, but there was no 
rain, and the only drawback was to be found in the flies, which some- 
times buzzed about their heads in a disagreeable fashion. The road 
which they took was the Banbury road, leading past the castle 
gate. 



OLD AND NEW ENGLAND. 47 

" Are we going to London, Cousin Ned ? " asked Charles, as they 
came to an aged stone which served as a mile-stone and told the dis- 
tance to London. 

" This is the road but we shall stop short of the city. What sin- 
gular stones these are." They were three-sided stones, and the 
lettering was often hard to decipher. The guide-posts at the forks 
of the roads were very simple, and rarely gave distances, but only 
names of hamlets and obscure villages. It was a pretty rolling 
country through which they were walking. An ascent now and 
then gave them a view of a wide stretch of land under high cultiva- 
tion, dotted with noble oaks and elms. Everywhere was the rich- 
est green, while a dewy, moist atmosphere lent a soft charm to the 
landscape, which was brightened now and then by the distant sun- 
light. About five miles from Warwick they left the Banbury road 
and took the old foss way. 

" We are now really stepping on antiquity," said Cousin Ned, 
" for this old foss way, as it is called, is the remains of one of the 
great Roman roads, and possibly of an even earlier British road." 

'• Where does it start and where does it end ? " asked Mr. John 
Bodley. 

" The most northern limit is at Lincoln." 

" That was a Roman camp." 

" Certainly, and colony too, as the narne shows. Two roads led 
from Lincoln : one almost directly south to London and thence to 
Canterbury and Dover ; the other, on which we are, passed through 
Nottingham, Leicester, crossed Watling Street, kept on in the direc- 
tion we are going, and so by Gloucester and Exeter to Dartmouth." 

" What is Watling Street ? " asked Sarah. 

" Oh, I know that," said John Bodley, suddenly. " We 've been to 



48- THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

it from Rugby. You go to Church Over, that 's between four and five 
miles from Rugby, and there 's a big mound right by WatUng Street. 
It 's a Roman mound." 

" But what is Watling Street ? " asked Sarah again. " You have 
n't told us that." 

" It was a Roman military road," said John. '' Some of the fel- 
lows have been to Tripontium. That was a Roman station on 
Watling Street." 

" Just think of reading Caesar in school." said Sarah, " and then 
taking a walk to see an old Roman station." 

" That 's nothing," said Charles. " We have lots of mounds in 
America made by the Indians." 

" Have you, really ? " asked John. " Did you ever see an In- 
dian ? but of course you have." 

" Well, not exactly," said Charles. " And these mounds were 
made by Indians who lived long before the Indians that were living 
in America when we first went over." John stared at him. 

" I thought you were born in America," said he. 

"So he was, John," said Cousin Ned. " That 's only Charles's way 
of making himself an Englishman of the seventeenth century." 

" I 'd like to see an Indian and his mound," said John. " But 
I 'd rather see the Indian if I could only see one." 

" So it goes," said Mrs. Van Wyck, philosophically. " John wants 
an Indian because he can't get one, and Sarah wants a Roman be- 
cause she can't get one. But, Ned, where are you taking us to on 
this Roman road." 

" That's the point I am aiming at," said he, pointing up to a hill- 
top that lay on their left. They all looked in the direction which 
he showed them. 




CHESTERTON MILL 



OLD AND NEW ENGLAND. 51 

'' A mill ! " said John. " Nothing but an old mill." 

"Newport tower ! " exclaimed Sarah. 

" That is it, Sarah," said Cousin Ned. " We '11 turn off here and 
make for it." So they crossed the fields for a mile or less, passed 
cattle and sheep grazing, and climbed the turf slope till they stood 
by the old mill, which had a deserted look about it. 

" Now, do you mean to say that this looks like the tower at 
Newport that the Vikings built ? " asked Mr. John Bodley, incred- 
ulously. 

" To be sure," said Cousin Ned. " The likeness is very close, ex- 
cept in the material used. This is of dressed stone, and there is 
some work about the capitals and bases of the pillars. The struc- 
ture at Newport is built of undressed stone, and is ruder every way, 
but the general character is the same." 

The party walked about it and climbed a staircase, but the door 
into the chamber above was locked. Six arches, perhaps six feet 
apart, held up the chamber, and a round cap surmounted the struc- 
ture. Upon the head of a window in the cap was the date of 1632. 
The arms of the windmill were there, but idle, for there were no 
sails upon them. The walls had been scratched and penciled over 
by numberless visitors. 

" Well," said Mr. John Bodley, " I don't see but this is an old 
windmill, and I never saw one like it in England before, but what 
has it to do with the Newport tower ? What place is this that we 
are in ? " 

"We are in Chesterton," said Cousin Ned. "Down there in the 
hollow are the marks of an old Roman camp by the foss way, and I 
suppose Chesterton got its name thus. But come, let us try that 
stone house yonder. I want to test my theory a little." 



52 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

" I had forgotten," said Charles. " This must be Cousin Ned's pet 
theory. By all means let us test it. Do you keep it in a coop, 
Cousin Ned, at that house ? " 

They all moved down a road which led from near the mill to the 
house which they had seen. It was built of the same stone as the 
mill, and there were marks about the doorway and the niche above 
it, which showed it to have been built by the same hands as those 
which built the mill. The place had a somewhat deserted air, but 
so large a party could hardly help bringing out whoever might be 
within. As they skirted the building they saw that it was also a 
mill, — a water-mill, — for a sheet of water was behind it, and the 
wheels were in motion. An old woman appeared in a little door- 
way and said the master was in the yard below, making a rick, so 
down they went, and found a stout young farmer, who stopped his 
work to have a chat with the visitors. 

He had known the mill six and twenty years, and had heard of its 
likeness to the Round Tower at Newport. It was the only structure 
of the kind in the county, and, so far as he knew, in the kingdom. 
That and the water-mill were built at the same time, so that when 
there was no water, the windmill was used, and when there was no 
wind, the water-mill was used. The machinery in the windmill had 
been changed from time to time, and had just been put in thorough 
repair. Oh yes, the mill had always been kept going. " It was built 
originally by the Peyto family, to whom the estate belonged, and 
had passed from their hands into those of Lord Willoughby de Broke, 
who now owned it. If the gentlemen wished to follow the matter, 
they would find the Peyto family buried in Chesterton Church, a 
mile away across the fields. 

" By all means," said Mr. John Bodley. " Let us cross-examine 



OLD AND NEW ENGLAND. 53 

the dead Peytos ; " and so they followed the farmer's directions, and 
crossed the fields to the little church, — a little old gray stone build- 
ing, with a dumpy tower, sitting sleepily in an ancient church-yard, 
with a brick wall protecting it from careless intruders. There was 
a thatched cottage just back of the church, and Mr. Nathan Bodley 
went to the first door, and brought out, with his knock, an old 
woman, who looked somewhat startled at the large party which had 
assembled before her door. 

" Have you the key to the church door? " asked Mr. Bodley. 

" I 'm very sorry, sir. Until I was taken ill, I used to have the 
care of the church, but it 's been taken from me. The keys are kept 
by two girls now, who live with their old father in the next cottage, 
but they 're gone away for the day. I '11 see," and so she knocked 
at the next door and tried it. " It 's locked, sir, they 're gone away. 
They 're often away." 

" That 's too bad," said Cousin Ned. " But we can speer about the 
outside." As they were walking slowly about the church-yard, an 
old man leaning on his stick came with difficulty up the hill and 
^shambled into the yard, cap in hand. 

" Good-day," said Mr. Nathan Bodley. " This is an old church. 
I 'm sorry we can't see it, but the woman in the cottage over there 
tells me the key cannot be had." 

" She 's a wicked woman, sir," said the old man, and his eye 
flashed. " She 's a false, wicked woman ; she 's a liar." 

" Well, can you get us the key ? " 

" Certainly I can," and off he hobbled. 

" He uses plain English," said Mrs. Bodley. 

" Perhaps he learned it from this sun-dial," said Mrs. Van Wyck, 
and she pointed with her sunshade to a dial over the porch, with the 



54 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

somewhat ungracious inscription : " See, and be gone about your 
business." 

'' It is not very polite," said Mr. John Bodle3^ " I take it, Pro- 
fessor Adams, that it 's a rebuke to you and me for coming to look 
at the bones of the Peytos." 

" Well, we will obey the first injunction first ; here comes our 
angry friend." 

,The old man poked with his key at the lock of a very small door, 
which led not through the porch, but directly into the church. He 
was grumbling and muttering at the time, evidently still in a passion 
over the wicked woman. 

" She can't be so very bad," said Mr. Nathan Bodley. " She went 
with me to your house and we knocked, and could not get in, and 
she said the girls had gone off for the day." 

"So they had, sir: they had gone to see their aunt. But she 
knew I was in the potato field. I saw you, sir, and mistrusted you 
had come to see the church. The wicked woman ! she tries to pre- 
vent people from going in, ever since my daughter had the keys. 
Ten people ! " said the old man, as he straightened himself and 
counted the little company. But the thought of a fee from ten peo- 
ple so mollified him that he became suddenh'- very gracious, and 
opening the door, let in the company to view the church. 

The church had a sin^-le aisle with a timber roof. It had been 
repaired from time to time, but the walls were old. The old man's 
chief interest, however, was in the monuments to the Peyto family. 
There was one to Sir Humphrey Peyto and Anna his wife, recum- 
bent figures in marble, while in relief behind them were their ten 
children. Great was the old man's uncertainty over the sex of two 
of these children. Five of the ten were unmistakably girls, two 



OLD AND NEW ENGLAND. 55 

were as surely men, one was an infant, but the other two had been 
a riddle apparently ever since the monument was set up, and the 
old man went ardently over the point of dress, face, and general ap- 
pearance of these epicene creatures, sometimes verging to a con- 
fident assertion that they were monks. The ten were all kneeling, 
and had their hands placed together in the attitude of prayer ; the 
dress of the women and of the doubtful beings concealed their legs ; 
the sculptor had not this help in treating the men, and he had been 
obliged to fling the legs to one side in a hopeless way, since the men 
must face the spectator and could not be presented on their stumps. 
It was evidently a painful problem to the sculptor, which he had 
solved courageously but unsuccessfally. The date was 1585. 

Another tablet recorded the virtues of one Mrs. Margaret Peyto, 
by whose will the estate had come into the hands of Lord Wil- 
loughby de Broke somewhere about the middle of the last century. 
The old man shook his head over this. He felt that the glories of 
the Peytos had been eclipsed, and he offered some dark hints that 
the property had not been altogether righteously obtained by the 
present owners. He took the party into the vestry, and showed 
them an old Peyto coat of arms which had been sent into dusty 
banishment ; he took them by a narrow flight into the tower loft, 
and showed how he rang the chimes on the bells, grasping two 
ropes with his hands, and placing his foot in the noose of a third. 
He rang a little tune and then stood and rubbed his leg; for a lono; 
time, explaining that he had once had a paralytic stroke. 

He was a garrulous old fellow. After the party had ransacked 
the little church and looked at every monument, he followed them 
into the church-yard, and talked incessantly of himself and the 
parish. Upon that hill yonder was the old manor-house, which was 
taken down long ago and farm-houses made out of the stables. 



56 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

" Do you see those trees yonder, sir ? " he asked of Professor 
Adams, to whom he had especially attached himself " Well, there 
was once a row, a double row of them from the 'ouse on the 'ill, 
over there, and an avenue led through them, and there was a double 
row of himages, sir, up to the 'ouse, so they call the 'ill the himage 
'ill to this day, sir." 

" And what is that arch in the brick wall on the other side of the 
church-yard ? " asked the Professor. " See, Nathan, what a singu- 
larly graceful one it is." 

" It is bricked up now, sir, but the Peytos used to come to church 
that way, and there was a little door into the church on that side for 
them to use." 

" What highly exclusive Peytos," said the Professor. 

" They were that," said the old man, taking the phrase as gen- 
erally complimentary. " Things have changed now. I 'm seventy- 
three years old. I learned to read myself, sir. I had my Testament 
and my Prayer-book, and I followed the minister in the desk, and 
then after a while I got a Bible, and then I could follow both Les- 
sons." 

" So you came to be clerk finally, I suppose," said the Professor. 

" No, sir. I was not schollard enough for that. I never had a pen 
in my hand. I could not write, sir, or I might have been. But 
my children could all read and write. And my youngest daughter, 
she 's twenty, and takes care of the church. Why, she can sit down 
and write anything, — anything, sir: she 's just like a lawyer." 

^' How many children have you ? " 

" My wife brought me eleven, and seven of them are living ; no, 
stop ; not seven, only six, for one died a year ago." Poor old fel- 
low ! he had so long counted and told off seven, that he forgot for a 



OLD AND hEW ENGLAND. 57 

moment how the number had been reduced. He received with pro- 
found gratitude the money which was given him, and muttered more 
maledictions on the wicked old woman as they moved away. 

" It 's a pity the old Peyto manor-house is gone," said the Pro- 
fessor. " I have no doubt it is one of Inigo Jones's houses. That 
arch in the brick wall was by Jones, I am sure ; and there is a very 
clear tradition that Jones built the two mills, the water-mill and the 
windmill. The images on the hill were, I suppose, garden statues 
such as were in fashion then. Yes, if the Peytos and their house 
were here, I should make bold to try to get entrance." 

" Why, what would you do inside. Cousin Ned ? " asked Sarah. 

" Ah, that 's it, Sarah ! what should I do ? I should interest the 
most living Peyto in my theories, and hunt through his ancestral 
papers with him to establish it." 

" Now, Cousin Ned, what is that theory of yours ? I know it has 
something to do with this walk, and the old sexton, and the wicked 
old woman." 

" Yes, everything we have seen to-day confirms my theory. I 
have been to Chesterton before, but I did not go to the water-mill 
or to the church." 

" Well, Professor Adams," said Mr. John Bodley, " here is a shady 
place. I for one am a little tired. Suppose we all sit down and 
have your theory spread before us." 

" We '11 lunch off it," said Charles ; " I for one am a little hungry." 

" It does not offer a very hearty meal," said Cousin Ned, " but 
you are welcome to all there is of it. Mr. Bodley, you regretted 
that you failed to get a copy of Palfrey's History the other day. If 
you had received the book you would have read that Dr. Palfrey had 
no doubt in his mind of the likeness between the Newport tower 



58 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

and this Chesterton mill. He came to Chesterton to see it, and he 
gives in his history a picture of each of the structures so as to show 
their resemblance. The Newport tower, he says, once had a hemi- 
spherical roof and a floor above the arcade, though both have now 
disappeared. The most interesting connection of the two, however, 
is through the man who appears first to have owned the Newport 
tower. Governor Arnold, of Newport, in his will, which is dated in 
1677, directs that he shall be buried on a spot ' lying in my land 
in or near the line or path from my dwelling-house leading to my 
stone-built windmill in the town of Newport.' In another part of 
his will he speaks of ' my Lennnington farm ; ' and as it was very cus- 
tomary for New England people when they first left home to give 
the names of their old English homes to their new settlements " — 

"Just as they do now in New Zealand," interrupted Mr. John 
Bodley. 

" Yes, and as Eastern men in the United States repeat the names 
of their homes in the new Western settlements. So, there is a tra- 
dition that the Arnolds of Rhode Island were from Warwickshire, 
Dr. Palfrey says ; and he thinks that Arnold, who was a young man 
of twenty when he came to America, may easily have remembered 
Chesterton mill as one of the wonders of the county, and repeated 
it when he built his stone-built windmill. Now that is where m}'- 
theory comes in. Arnold was sixty years old when he built the 
mill. That is to say, an old writer reports that in 1675 the first 
windmill had been blown down, and as Arnold refers in 1677 to his 
stone-built windmill. Dr. Palfrey's very natural conjecture is that he 
built this Newport tower to replace the structure blown down, and 
that since the mill had been blown down, he built a solid one that 
would stand. But it was forty years after Arnold had seen the 



OLD AND NEW ENGLAND. 61 

Chesterton mill, and my objection is that his memory would have 
failed to supply him with the exact proportions and with details of 
the structure. So my little theory comes in to put this matter 
straight. I conjecture that Arnold, through influential friends, ob- 
tained from the Peyto family a copy of Inigo Jones's plans and meas- 
urements. He remembered the Chesterton mill, and was ambitious 
to copy it, but he needed drawings and details. Where could he 
better go for these than to the original designer of the mill ? But 
Inigo Jones died in 1652, and he could not get the plans from him. 
Since, however, Jones built both the mills, and either built or added 
to the manor-house, for I am sure that arch in the brick wall was of 
his designing, he was most likely a friend of the Peyto family, and 
in the Peyto manor-house would be preserved the detailed drafts of 
the great architect. Now what I want " — 

" Wait a moment. Cousin Ned," said Charles. " Who was this 
Inigo Jones ? His first name makes up for his last." 

" He was an architect in great favor in the early half of the seven- 
teenth century. His name is said to have been given him by a 
Spanish godfather. He was a man of fine taste, and many admirable 
buildings and squares in London are the result of his designs. He 
was often called upon also to plan the pageants and masques which 
were so popular then, but as the glories of those pageants were built 
chiefly of pasteboard, there is nothing to show for them now. As 
I was saying, what I want is that by a happy chance I shall come 
upon a letter or writing of some sort which shall make it plain that 
Benedict Arnold, the Governor at Newport, availed himself of Inigo 
Jones's plans in building his stone windmill. I think it would be 
a great find." 

" Can't you write the letter yourself, Ned ? " asked Mr. Nathan 
Bodley. 



62 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

"I may be driven to that," said the Professor, "but 1 should 
prefer the real article to a forgery." 

" Perhaps the papers are in a. box under the corner-stone of the 
Newport tower," suggested Charles. 

" Then they are in the safest place imaginable, for the Newport 
people will not let the old building fall down yet awhile. But I am 
afraid that when the vines upon it pull it to pieces there will be no 
corner-stone found. Governor Arnold had no idea how much in- 
terest posterity would take in his mill." 

" Well," said Mr. John Bodley, " you have destroyed a very pretty 
fiction, but after all Mr. Longfellow's poem will keep building it up 
again. You see such an ignorant fellow as I am would have con- 
tinued to believe in the Norse tower, if you had not chanced to 
come along with your inconvenient learning." 

" Yes," said Mrs. Van Wyck, " if it were not for the poets, we 
should believe the historians, and they would keep us on bread and 
water if they could have things all their own way." 

After resting they all walked to Leamington, where they dined, 
and walked back to Warwick in the cool of the evening, well satis- 
fied with their day's excursion. 



CHAPTER IV. 

A RAINY DAY. 



The day that followed was a wet one, and no one stirred out of 
the house in the morning. The old inn afforded the children some 



A RAINY DAY. 63 

entertainment. In the room which Cousin Ned occupied, and where 
he was busily engaged writing, they amused themselves with 
watching from the window what went on in the court-yard of the 
inn. The window itself was an old one. Upon one of the small 
panes of glass were scratched names and dates and words which 
were easily deciphered. Lieutenant Thompson, of the Londonderry 
regiment, had evidently been shut up in the room on a dull day, for 
he had traced on the glass his name and date, July 21, 1795, and 
above his name, " Love — Lovely Miss M. Williamson." 

" See, Cousin Ned," said Sarah. " Here is a romance begun on 
the window-pane. I wonder if the gallant Lieutenant Thompson 
married the lovely Miss Williamson." 

" He probably ran away with her," said John Bodley, 

" And carried her off to America," said Charles. 

"Where she lived, in a windmill," said Margaret. "That would 
translate the 'Skeleton in Armor' into modern prose." 

" And long after," resumed Sarah, " his bones, covered with a pair 
of overalls and a miller's coat, were found by Professor Adams as he 
was taking a walk near the windmill." 

" You ruthless little nineteenth century people," exclaimed Cousin 
Ned. " As a punishment, when I have finished my writing and we 
have had lunch, I mean to take you to Stratford, to show you where 
Shakespeare was born and died." 

The boys and girls left the Professor alone so that he could get 
through his w^ork earlier, and after lunch he took them in charge 
and carried them by rail to Stratford, only eight miles or so away. 
The older people, who had all been to Stratford before, chose to re- 
main in the inn to sight-seeing in the rain ; but our party were not 
daunted by the rain, and trudged along through Stratford streets in 
their india rubber coats and waterproofs. 



64 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

" There 's a good deal of Shakespeare in this Uttle town," said 
Charles, as they walked. " Here is a Shakespeare inn, and I just 
saw a Falstaff inn." 

" And Great William Street," said Sarah. " I suppose that Wil- 
liam Shakespeare was the Great William." 

" Yet I suppose," said Charles, philosophically, " that the boys 
once called him Bill." 

'• Will, more likely," said his cousin. " Then there is Hathaway 
Court and Arden Street. It is like a great ShakesjDeare bazaar. 
We must make our first visit to the house where he was born." 

A big sign upon a street corner pointed " To Shakespeare's 
House," and the house was easily found. The buildings on either 
side had been taken down to lessen the danger of fire, and behind 
the house was that in which the custodian lived, the house itself be- 
ing used wholly as a Shakespeare museum. It was some little time 
before the bell was answered, and then the custodian opened the 
outer door and let the party in. 

" I hope you are not tired of answering this bell," said Cousin 
Ned, politely. 

" Oh no, sir," she said. " I opened the door for^ twelve thousand 
people last year." 

" And not one of them was a Shakespeare," said Sarah. 

"Indeed, miss, there were two or three Shakespeares among 
them. There 's one living in this town now." 

"Does he write plays ?" asked Sarah, demurely. "It was that 
kind of a Shakespeare I was thinking of" 

" He 's a cordwainer," said the woman. " This is the room " — 

" Oh, do tell us first what a cordwainer is," said Sarah. " I 've al- 
ways read about cordwainers, and never knew what they were." 

" Why, a cordwainer," said Margaret, " is a shoemaker." 



A RAINY DAY. 65 

'^ It 's a much finer name," said Sarah. The woman who showed 
the house was not well pleased with the interruption. It was so 
much easier to take a party from one room to another and name off 
the things she had shown to the thousands of earlier parties, and to 
use just the same words ! Poor thing ! how fresh at first must have 
been her interest ! how eagerly she must have studied everything 
with reference to the interesting objects of her museum ! and how 
dull must be the same old story to her, after she had told it twenty 
thousand times or more ! 

The children went through the rooms and looked at the curios- 
ities. They sat in the chair which Shakespeare was said to have 
sat in. They saw Shakespeare's school desk, very old and much 
hacked, and his seal ring, and his mug, and the stirrups he wore. 
There was no clothing, and not a scrap of his writing. 

" What would not people give for a letter of Shakespeare's ! " said 
Cousin Ned. 

" Half the people would not believe it was his," said the woman, 
with a sigh. 

" Then you have people come here," said he, " who doubt if Shake- 
speare wrote Shakespeare ? " 

" Yes, sir. There are more every year." 

" Well, Stratford, and this house, and the church, and grave, are 
formidable witnesses to a belief in Shakespeare, and I don't think 
people are going to abandon the belief to satisfy a few theorists who 
all agree only to doubt." 

" What if the house should burn down ! " said Charles, as they 
walked away. 

" They never allow any light or fire in the building," said his 
cousin, " so that the chances of destruction are lessened. It 's an. 



66 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

interesting shrine, but how much more indestructible Shakespeare's 
dramas are ! No fire can destroy them. No, not even the critics 
can conceal them," he added. 

On the way to what is called Shakespeare's New Place, where he 
went to live when he returned, a comfortable citizen, to Stratford, 
they passed a beer shop with a painted sign above it, representing 
the old mill at Chesterton. They came to New Place. Not a ves- f 
tige remains of Shakespeare's house but the supposed foundations 
of a portion, covered with netting for further protection. Here one 
can trace the lines on the earth upon which the walls stood. 

" Well ! " said Cousin Ned. " This rubs out Shakespeare pretty 
effectually. If I were a disbeliever in Shakespeare, I should call 
this pretty good negative proof This reminds me of the wit's ac- 
count of the Charter Oak : that the hole in which the Charter was 
hid was brought over in the tenth century, and the Oak which was 
to surround it was planted in the eleventh century." 

There was a pretty walk up to the church through an aisle shaded 
with lime-trees, and the children stopped at the porch to read the 
notices posted on the door. One of them was headed : — 

"The return of the Church-wardens and Overseers of the Poor of 
the borough or township of Stratford-upon-Avon. ... of men qual- 
ified to serve on juries." 

" Here is William Shakespeare's name in the list ! " exclaimed 
Margaret Bodley. 

" To be sure," said Sarah. " He is our old friend the cordwainer. 
See, he is set down ' Shakespeare, William, cordwainer, a freeholder.' " 

" But what a singular place to post the notice," said Charles. 

"Why?" asked John. 

*' Why, it 's on a church door. I should think it would be on the 




STRATFORD CHURCH. 



I 



A RAINY DAY. 69 

town-hall door, or the court-house, or the police station. And here 
are all these notices." 

" We always have them so," said John. " I don't see anything 
odd about it." 

" You would have seen just such notices once on church doors in 
New England, Charles," said his cousin. " You are used to seeing 
the church kept quite distinct from the town. It is under the con- 
trol of a society in America, that has nothing to do with overseers 
of the poor or juries. By the way, Charles, what do you mean by a 
parish ? " 

" A parish ? why — why, it is the people who go to some partic- 
ular church." 

" Is that your idea of a parish, John ? " 

" No. A parish is a town or a part of a town." 

" You are both pretty nearly right. In England a parish is a 
territory under the government of some one church, and the officers 
of that church have a certain authority over all the people within 
that territory. People all belong to one parish or another, whether 
they go to the parish church or not. In America a parish has no 
territorial bounds ; it is made up of people who voluntarily connect 
themselves with some particular church. The parish priest in Eng- 
land is a magistrate as well as a preacher and pastor, and a good 
many affairs are under the control of the parish which with us are 
managed wholly by the town." 

"Then what did you mean," asked Charles, "when you said 
that in New Eno-land notices used to be on the church doors ? " 

" The Englishmen who came over to New England first were used 
to something like our town government as we now have it, only it 
was parish government, and so at first when churches were built 



70 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

they were built for the whole town, and all the people had to sup- 
port them. The church and the town were pretty much the same 
thing; but little by little, as the towns grew, and new churches were 
formed, and the people differed in religious matters, the power came 
to reside in the towns, which had territorial limits, and not in the 
churches, which were built in the towns. The New England town is 
the old English parish with changes and additions. Most of the 
changes took place, I think, because, as the people elected both 
their ministers and their town officers, they came to separate the 
ministers more and more from the town officers, to make them look 
after the spiritual afftiirs, while the town officers looked after the 
temporal. But come, let us go into the church." 

They passed into the cool, dark church, and made their way to 
the one point of interest in it, to where Shakespeare's bones were 
laid and Shakespeare's bust stood upon the wall above. They read 
the familiar lines upon the stone which is supposed to cover Shake- 
speare's remains : — 

" Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear 
To dig the dust enclosed here. 
Blest be the man that spares these stones, 
And curst be he that moves my bones." 

" I should think it would make everybody want to pry up this 
stone," said Charles. 

" It does excite one's curiosity," said his cousin. " Who do you 
suppose wrote the lines ? " 

" Why, Shakespeare." 

" Before or after he died ? " 

Charles hesitated. 

" Why, of course, before he died." 



A RAINY DAY. 71 

" Well," said his cousin, " do you think it was before he wrote 
' Hamlet ' or after ? " 

'' Why, what do you mean ? " 

" Do you think that the man who wrote these lines was capable 
of writing ' Hamlet ' ? " 

" I really never thought. But did n't Shakespeare write these 
lines ? " 

" Perhaps he did, and perhaps, also, he wrote 

' ' ' Steal not this book for fear of shame, 
For here you see the owner's name. 
At the last judgment God will say, 
Where is that book you stole aw;iy? ' 

No. It is a piece of doggerel, such as one finds on old grave-stones 
cut by country stone-masons. There used to be a stock of these 
old rhymes, from which any one could draw. I suppose the stone- 
mason who was called in when Shakespeare was buried thought he 
must give poetry to a poet, and so cut these lines." 

" How strange," said Margaret Bodley, as they walked away, 
"that great Shakespeare should be buried here in a country church, 
and not in Westminster Abbey, in the Poets' Corner." 

" When he died, Margaret, he was by no means so famous as now, 
and then I do not think that Westminster Abbey was at that time 
made the resting place of famous poets outside of London. Chaucer 
and Spenser both died near Westminster. Shakespeare, you know, 
has a monument there." 

There was a footpath from the neighborhood of the church to 
Shottery, and they walked by it to take a look at the cottage where 
Anne Hathaway, whom Shakespeare married, had lived. The rail- 
road had somehow done more than give a modern air to the place ; 



72 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

it had seemed to cheapen nature, and the children thought the 
muddy path they trod must be very unlike the one which Shake- 
speare took when he strolled across the fields to see Anne. Her 
cottage had others like it in the neighborhood, — thatch-roofed, old 
grandam looking cottages, — which quite satisfied the eye, and the 
little hamlet could easily have seemed to them the same as that 
which Shakespeare looked upon if it were not for the dreary, dull 
brick houses scattered about, and the slovenly roads. All the rus- 
ticity seemed to have gone out, and only the meaner side of pov- 
erty to have been left. The party strolled about Shottery and 
came back to Stratford, where they bought a jug or two and some 
wooden ware, all marked with pictures of Shakespeare's house and 
the church, and so went back to Warwick. 

The rain had not ceased all day, and indeed it had grown so 
chilly that a fire had been built in the sitting-room which the Bod- 
leys and Van Wycks used, and here, after dinner, the entire party 
gathered. 

" Could you not connect Shakespeare in some way with Chester- 
ton mill and the Newport tower?" asked Mr. John Bodley of 
Cousin Ned. 

" I am afraid that as Shakespeare died in 1616, and the mill was 
built in 1632, it would be rather difficult to get him any nearer than 
the spot where the mill afterward stood. He very likely walked 
along the old foss way, and perhaps stood on the hill, for it is not 
much farther from Charlecote, where Shakespeare went poaching, 
than Charlecote is from Stratford. I am afraid I have exhausted 
my ingenuity on Chesterton without working in Shakespeare." 

"Ned," said Mr. Nathan Bodley, " could n't you invent the neces- 
sary papers to prove your little theory about the mill ? " 



A RAINY DAY. 73 

"I have been guilty of that very palpable deceit. In fact, I 
amused myself this rainy morning with putting together the various 
parts of my puzzle." 

" Oh, that was what he was writing this morning when' we were 
in his room," cried Sarah. 

" Then let us hear it," said Mr. John Bodley. 

" Very well," said the Professor, " I wrote it to clear out my mind, 
and I will read it, so as to dismiss the whole matter. I think we 
have made about as much of my tender little theory as it will bear. 
Charles, bring me my portfolio, please. It 's on the table in my 
room." 

The portfolio was brought, and Professor Adams read from it the 
short tale which he had contrived out of the bits of fact and fancy 
which gathered about the old mill. 

A WINDMILL IN SPAIN. 

One September afternoon in 1632 a lad was seated on a mound 
by the side of the old Roman foss way which crossed England in a 
diagonal direction. The mound whereon he sat was a part of the 
'old Roman camp, which had once been a station upon the foss way. 
Here Roman soldiers had once liad their camp-fires and watched 
the stars, where now, upon the grassy plain, a flock of sheep were 
grazing. The lad who sat here knew who the Romans w^re, for he 
was the son of a well to do country gentleman, William Arnold, 
Esquire, of Leamington, and he had studied Latin with the rector of 
the church at Leamington. He had read Caesar's " Commentaries," 
and knew how the Romans had come to England, and he knew that 
the roadway behind him had echoed to the tramp of Roman sol- 
diers' feet as they had marched from Lincoln to the sea-coast. He 



74 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

fell to thinking of the Romans, and though the land had been over- 
run by armies since that day, he wondered how it would be to come 
here, and, instead of finding a flock of peaceful sheep, to see a com- 
pany of soldiers laying out a camp. He was a quiet lad, much given 
to reverie, and as he lay at full length upon the grass he tried to 
imagine an England where men from Leamington should march 
against men from Stratford, and meet here for deadly conflict upon 
the old Roman camp. 

It was easy to see why Romans should have come to England and 
have tried to get possession of it, and why Spaniards, in Queen Eliz- 
abeth's day, should have planned a great armada with which to 
make a descent upon English coasts ; but what likelihood was there 
that Englishmen should fight Englishmen on their own soil ? The 
Wars of the Roses had long ago been ended. King Charles the First 
was on the throne of England, and his son of the same name, now 
two years old, would be king after him. Then he remembered some 
of the talk he had heard at his father's table ; his father was a Puri- 
tan gentleman, and some of his neighbors were Puritans also, and 
many an earnest word had been uttered in the boy's hearing. They 
talked of the king and of Parliament. Three years ago the king 
had dissolved Parliament, and it was even feared that he meant to 
govern England without any Parliament at all. In that Parliament 
were many outspoken men, and often had young Arnold heard the 
story how, when the king had ordered Parliament dissolved, and the 
Speaker of the House had risen to declare it dissolved, Holies and 
Valentine had held him down by main force, while Holies had read 
a protest declaring that any one who should favor or countenance 
Popery, or should voluntarily pay any subsidy not granted by Par- 
Hament, should be counted an enemy to the kingdom. 



A RAINY DAY. 75 

There were troublous times at hand, every one said, and some 
had even despaired of peace at home and had taken their house- 
holds and all their stuff to New England across the seas. Worthy 
John Winthrop, Esquire, of Suffolk, had gone, and it was said that 
a thousand had gone with him. All these things had disturbed 
young Benedict Arnold, but he found it hard to believe that English- 
men would actually take up arms against other Englishmen. All 
that seemed as far off and as dim as the coming of the Romans 
fifteen centuries and more ago. He tried to send away the thought, 
and so he fell to thinking what he himself would like best to be. 
Was there anything better than living in this peaceful country all 
his days ? ^ 

Yes, there was one dream which he had. A hundred miles away 
lay the city of London. He never had been there, but he had heard 
of its wonders. To be sure, he had heard chiefly of the wickedness 
of the place. His flither had been there at the beginning of the 
year, and had frowned as he told of the masque which had been pre- 
sented, with all its folly and revelry and its waste of money ; but 
Benedict had caught enough of the pageant from his father's ac- 
count to build it over again in his mind, as he lay looking up into 
the clouds that crossed the sky. 

The sound of distant voices broke in on his dreams, and he looked 
in the direction whence the sound came. There, upon the round 
hill which lay toward the hamlet of Chesterton, was a party of work- 
men with carts and horses. He was too far away to see what they 
were doing ; they had but lately come upon the scene, and he was 
curious to know what they were about. For all his love of dream- 
ing the lad was an active fellow, and now he strode across the field 
toward the hill. As he drew near he made out one figure different 



76 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

in dress and appearance from those of the diggers and ditchers who 
were at work ; toward him he went frankly, and saw that he held 
a paper in his hand, and was now and then marking upon it. The 
worthy looked up as Benedict came forward, and gave him a pleas- 
ant smile. Benedict saw a graceful man of sixty, with long, curling 
hair, a close-curling beard and moustache, and a vigorous, strongly 
marked face, with a pair of bright, searching eyes. He took off his 
cap to the man. 

" Have you come to see the famous mill ? " asked the man. 

" I did not know, sir, what it was you were building. What a 
company of men to build a mill ! " 

" Oh, but this is no ^common wooden mill," said the stranger, 
laughing gayly ; " this is to be a stone mill to stand forever, or as 
long as the wind blows, at least. There 's not another mill like it in 
the kingdom." 

The wind was fluttering the papers which he held, and he found 
it difficult to keep them open where he would have them. 

" Let me hold the papers for you," said Benedict. 

"Thank you, my lad, if you will just lay hold of that corner and 
keep it down. You look like a fine fellow. Are you one of tliis 
county ? " 

" Yes, sir, my fxther is a Leamington squire." 

" Ah ? I saw a Leamington squire in London last New Year's," 
and the stranger laughed again, lightly. "He did not like the 
masque." 

" That was my father," said Benedict, quickly. He would not let 
this stranger speak ill of him. 

"' Did he tell you what he said to me ? " 

" I do not know who you are," said the boy, " and how^ then, 
should I know ? " 



A RAINY DAY. 77 

"I am Tnigo Jones, at your service." 
- " Why, you made the masque ! " exclaimed Benedict. 

" To be sure. Ben Jonson and I made it. That is my business, 
or part of it. You see I am now making a windmill, and below 
there I am making a water-mill." 

" And you made the Peyto manor-house, with the images on the 
hill." The boy spoke with enthusiasm. 

" To be sure," and Inigo Jones looked at him with interest. " Do 
you like it ? " 

" It is beautiful." said he. " Is there anything more beautiful in 
London ? " 

" There will be when I have completed the repairs of St. Paul's," 
said the architect, with an amused air. " Come, how do you like 
my windmill ? " and he showed him on another leaf a drawing of 
his design. Benedict looked at it long and thoughtfully. 

" I think Caesar might have built it," he said, finally. 

" Good, my lad," and Jones patted him on the shoulder. " What 
makes you say that ? " 

" Because of the arches," said the boy, hesitating, " and I suppose 
because it stands here near the old Roman camp." 

"Right again ! why ! that is the reason I planned it as I did. I 
wanted people some day to fancy that it was built when the camp 
was made. Bu^ that was not the only reason." And then the ar- 
chitect explained carefully how he intended the free passage of air 
under the arches to prevent an eddy which lessens the power of the 
wind when striking upon the sails. He was pleased with Benedict's 
questions and answers. " I see that you notice things, my lad," 
said he, as he finally rolled up his drawings. " Why should you not 
be an architect ? Come to London and study with me. I forgot. 



•78 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

though," and he laughed again. " You must ask your father what 
he said to me. Now I must betake myself to the manor." He 
bade the lad good day, and they separated, Benedict to hasten home, 
full of new ideas and dreams. 

Every day thereafter, when he could make time for it, he walked 
or rode his pony to the old camp, and watched the mill grow under 
the hands of the masons and workmen. The architect did not come 
again ; he had left his plans to be carried out, and so complete had 
he made his design, that no question arose which could recall him. 
Meanwhile Benedict had told his father of his encounter with him. 
One thing only he had not told, and that was the hearty invitation 
which Inigo Jones had given him to come up to London and study 
architecture with him. He kept this to himself as a fair dream, 
scarcely to be whispered to his own heart. He knew it would have 
no charm for his father. 

William Arnold was a zealous Puritan. He was watching with 
the closest care the movements in the kingdom, and long and often 
did he discourse with a few friends touching what should be done if 
King Charles and his bishops were to take from Englishmen the 
liberty which they held dearer than life. He sent letters also across 
the water to Massachusetts Bay, and received thence long letters 
telling him of the affairs of the colony there. Months went by, and 
the more he considered the times, the more he was drawn to try his 
fortune in the new land. He had two sons younger than Benedict, 
Thomas and Stephen, and with these three lads he made no doubt 
he should prosper. His wife had died, and perhaps this loneliness 
made him more willing. But there was need of caution, for there 
were many in the king's counsels who looked with 'concern upon 
the departure out of the kingdom of men of substance and standing; 



A RAINY DAY. 79 

SO that at last, when he had resolved to go, he said little of his plans 
to his neighbors, but set out for London with his family, and left an 
agent in care of his estate. 

The boys were in high spirits over the adventure of a journey to 
London, but Benedict, forsooth, was the only one of the three who 
was acquainted with his father's purposes. His father had confided 
in him, for he was the eldest and was not far from twenty years 
old, quiet in his ways and inviting trust, but with a look sometimes 
in his face which told of dreams and wishes which he kept to him- 
self Now he was going to London, but in spite of the fact that 
London was only a stopping-place on their way to the west of Eng- 
land, whence they were to sail for America, the new life in that 
distant land had no such charm for him as the prospect of looking 
upon the great ci-ty, and seeing its famous buildings, its palaces 
and churches, and new squares. He wanted to see Whitehall Ban- 
queting room, and the new piazza of Covent Garden. These were 
among the works of the great Inigo Jones, for Benedict had treas- 
ured in his memory everything which he had heard or read of the 
famous architect. 

They were to be in London a few weeks, and while the elder Ar- 
nold was busy with his affairs, the boys were left much to them- 
selves, though Benedict, now a stout young man, was w^ell able to 
look after his younger brothers. It chanced one day that he was 
walking through St. Martin's Lane. To tell the truth he was tak- 
ing that way, which had but lately been built, that he might get 
into the green country beyond ; for it was now early spring, and 
poor Benedict, who had been so eager to get into the city, was pin- 
ing for the fresh fields beyond. He had come up from the noisy 
and dirty Strand, and had caught a glimpse of the open country. 



go THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

Toward that he was bending his steps, when suddenly a hand was 
laid upon his shoulders. He looked up, and there to his surprise 
and joy was the great architect, who had a town house in St. Mar- 
tin's Lane. 

" What ! is it thou ? " asked Inigo Jones, heartily. " Hast thou 
come up to town to learn my art?" Benedict blushed and was 
confused. I 

" No, sir," and then he hesitated, for he knew that it was his 
father's wish that he should not spread his intention of going to 
America. 

" Come in, come in," said the architect. " We are right at my 
door," and Benedict followed him into the house. 

" Anne ! Anne ! " cried Inigo, as they entered. " Come hither ! " 
and a girl came running forward, who stopped suddenly as she saw 
a youth with her father. " This is my young friend, Benedict Ar- 
nold, of Warwickshire, of whom I told you. Let us have some Ca- 
nary and cakes." The girl hastened away to do his bidding, and 
had he never seen her again, young Benedict would never have 
forgotten the fresh, fair maiden who had so unexpectedly appeared. 
But see her again he did, for not only did she hover about them as. 
the architect talked with the young man, but she came also once or 
twice to the studio whither Inigo carried his young friend, and 
where there was at work a cousin of hers, one Master Webb. 

" Come," said the architect to Benedict. " Join my nephew here,. 
Master Webb, and I '11 warrant you will soon go beyond him. Eh, 
Anne, do you think your cousin is the cloth out of which great ar- 
tists are woven," and he gave her a mischievous look. 

Benedict looked wistfully at the drawings and plans which hung 
about the walls or stood on tables, but he could not help stealing a-. 



A RAINY DAY. . 81 

good many glances also at the pretty Anne, who flitted about the 
room like some tame sparrow that had never known fear of man. 
To him, it seemed as though to be in the place of this young Master 
Webb would be worth more than all the wooded acres of America 
of which his father talked. He slipped away at last, and once in 
the lane again he kept on into the open country, for he wanted to 
dream and think before he should return to his father. 

When he did rejoin his father he found the old Puritan wonder- 
ing where he had been, yet in such excellent spirits that he forgot 
to chide his son. 

" The way is now clear," said he. " There is a vessel to sail from 
Dartmouth early in May, and some of our kinsfolk from Dorset are 
going. We will take passage in her, and, the Lord willing, we shall 
be in New England before the summer is over. And I have found 
a vessel which is to sail for Dartmouth to-morrow night, so we can 
be on our way at once." 

" Father," said Benedict with a trembling voice. " This is very 
sudden." 

" Fear not the voyage, my son." 

" Oh, it is not that I fear. I — ^ I would fain stay in England." 

" There you speak without due knowledge. I have heard much 
more than I have told you. The Papists are the real rulers of Eng- 
land. This Bishop Laud is a Papist in disguise. The king is in his 
hands, and it will go hard with every godly man in the kingdom." 

" I fear I shall make a poor planter," said Benedict, trying to 
stave off what he knew to be inevitable. 

" Tut, tut, lad. In that new country you will be farmer and mil- 
ler with the best of them. You have good English stuff in you, 
though you were always something of a dreamer." 



82 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

" Might it not be well," he suddenly asked with a new hope, " if 
I were to stay here long enough to learn a trade, like that of build- 
ing, and then I could be of more use to you in the new countries ? " 
The father looked at him narrowly. 

" You would like to learn how to build a mill, perhaps," said he. 
^^ Hast thou seen that Papist architect who turned your head awhile 
since ? " 

" Yes, sir," said Benedict, boldly. " I met him by chance to-day, 
and he told me he would teach me his art if I would come to him." 

" Aye, he would teach thee more arts than one. Nay, Benedict, 
we have no need of any St. Paul's in America. The Lord is not to 
be worshipped in palaces and fine courts. I saw this Inigo Jones 
once, and delivered a message to him." 

Benedict was silent. He knew not what to say. The remem- 
brance of the good-natured architect and the bright room and mis- 
tress Anne lightly stepping, came back to him as a dream which 
he tried to hold fast by, when he knew that he was waking to reality 
and to things as they are. He stood so long in silence that his fa- 
ther wondered what was passing in the youn^ man's mind. 

He never knew, for Benedict kept close the fading dream. On 
the morrow the party took their leave, and after a month's delay in 
Dartmouth, they sailed on Friday, the first day of May, 1635, for 
the new land. They anchored in Massachusetts Bay on June 24th. 

They did not, however, remain in the colony, but took their way 
to Narragansett Bay the next spring, and settled at Providence 
Plantation. 

It lay upon Benedict Arnold's mind that he had left Inigo Jones 
and his daughter with never a word. Often did he think of them 
in his new home. Five years after the Arnolds had left England 



A RAINY DAY. 83 

Benedict took to himself a wife, Demaris. They lived till 1651 at 
the Providence Plantation, and then removed to Newport. It 
chanced that Roger Williams was to go to England in behalf of the 
colonists in 1643, and Benedict Arnold, who saw him often at his 
father's house, walked with him, just before he went, in the or- 
chard. 

" I have a request to make of thee," he said. " There was a 
great man of London, Sir Inigo Jones, who befriended me when I 
was a lad. I fear much that I did not show him true gratitude. 
Wilt thou seek him out, tell him of my prosperity, of my marriage, 
indeed, and whatsoever thou wilt, and that I do not forget him here 
in America — nor any of his household," he added after a pause. 
The good minister did not forget young Benedict Arnold's message. 
It was an easy matter to find the great architect, and when he re- 
turned to Rhode Island, Roger Williams sought his friend. 

"That was a man worth knowing," said he, as he told of his inter- 
view with Inigo Jones. " He spared not to show me many things, 
and he asked many questions of you and of our life here in the 
wilderness. He had not known where you were till he made in- 
quiries in Warwickshire. I saw also his daughter. Mistress Webb." 

" Ah ! " said Benedict. 

" She also would know much of you, but methought she was con- 
strained in her questions. I asked them if they had any message 
for you, and Sir Inigo bade me give yon this roll." 

Benedict received it, but did not open it then. He thanked the 
minister for his kindness and then went by himself He opened the 
roll and found it to contain the plans of the stone mill at Chester- 
ton. In a corner were the words : — 

" A remembrance of a friendship." 



g4 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

There was no name signed, but the writing was in a woman's 
hand. Benedict Arnold laid the plans away. He had many labors 
in those days. With Demaris, his wife, he had the care of his little 
household, of Benedict and Caleb and Josiah. He had his clearing 
in the wilderness to make fertile. He had to keep on friendly terms 
with the Indians, and he succeeded Koger Williams as governor of 
the colony. They were days of hard work and patient toil, but year 
by year the colony throve. Governor Arnold was known as a wise 
man and one of great charity. He was one of those who befriended 
the persecuted Quakers. At length, when he had reached the even- 
ing of his days and all was peaceful about him, care was taken from 
him, and though he was looked up to for counsel, and served when 
called upon as governor, he had a calm and gentle life. The balmy 
air of Newport had somewhat to do with this, but perhaps more was 
due to the slow meltiuiJ!: of his dreams into a life of labor and toil for 
others, and now the trooping back of his dreams as the stars come 
out in the heavens. He remembered the years that were gone, and 
the faces which he had once known. He was like a man who had 
come to the end of a long journey, upon which he had dreaded to 
set out, but now that he was at the end could not and would not re- 
turn to the pleasant fields which he had been loth to leave. He 
had no regrets for his life ; it had not been wasted ; but he brought 
back to himself in those still days the remembrance of unfulfilled 
hopes, and, musing thus, he resolved one day, with a smile on his 
lips, to build upon his pleasant farm a stone windmill, like that 
which he had known at Chesterton. It must needs be ruder, but it 
was built upon the plans which the architect's daughter had given 
him. Half way from his house to this mill he laid in the earth a 
little daughter who had died, and often as he sat by his door and 



A RAINY DAY. 85 

watched his substantial mill, his eyes traveled to the grave and 
then beyond. He was a silent man, who said little. His family and 
his friends thought him very proud of his stone built windmill since 
he sat so long every evening with his eyes turned upon it. He 
smiled at their thoughts, but he did not tell them that the mill was 
a boyish dream turned by a man's toil into a shape which was to 
him half a monument to a buried hope, and half a witness to his 
helpful life. 

" It seems that we must have some sentiment about the old mill," 
said Mrs. Van Wyck, " and since the Northmen have taken their 
leave, I am quite ready to people the place with English men and 
maids. But, Cousin Ned, could you not have found some more 
agreeable name for your hero than that of Benedict Arnold?" 

" Unhappily, Phippy, the name is the historic truth upon which 
my little romance is built." 

" But he surely was not an ancestor of the wretch who betrayed 
his country ? " 

" The direct ancestor. Benedict Arnold of shameful memory 
was the great-grandson of Benedict of the mill. A straight suc- 
cession of Benedicts leads from one to the other." 

" All the virtue must have leaked out by the way," said Mrs. 
Bodley. " However, if children may redeem a father's evil name, 
perhaps a great-grandfather may partly atone for a wicked descen- 
dant." 



36 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

CHAPTER V. 

A COUNTRY WALK. 

The day that followed was as lovely as heart of man could desire, 
and our friends welcomed it joyfully, because it helped them so well 
to carry out a plan they had formed for taking a walk together over 
a road which showed them the heart of England. The English 
Bodleys had volunteered to show them the way ; they had been 
over the ground before ; and so, sending their bags by rail, they 
stepped out cheerfully along the road to Coventry. 

" I have heard," said Mr. John Bodley, " that two Englishmen 
once laid a wager as to which was the finest walk in England. One 
named the walk from Stratford to Coventry, and the other the walk 
from Coventry to Stratford, so it was hard to tell which won the 
wager." 

" I 've tried it both ways," said John Bodley, " and I think the 
only difference is in the time of day you take it. This morning the 
other walk is finer, because we should n't have the sun so much in 
our faces." 

However, a thin veil of clouds soon hid the sun, and they all 
trudged along the broad, shaded road. About a mile on the way 
they came to Guy's Cliffj where was a fine manorial house beautifully 
placed in the woods. ■ There was a singular and very captivating 
glimpse of it to be had from the road, for a section of the garden 
wall had been removed, and they could look through this opening 
to the house beyond. A couple of gate posts stood at the opening, 
and between them stretched a long, noble avenue of greensward 



A COUNTRY WALK. 87 

marked by two rows of stately firs and terminating at the house. It 
was exactly as if this were the main entrance, but there was no gate 
no road, and a low wall between the posts, without interrupting the 
vista, sufficiently protected the place from intrusion. Upon the op- 
posite side of the highway in a field was an artist under an umbrella, 
who was sketching the scene. They had not noticed him as they 
came along, and now as they all stood in a group admiring the vista, 
they made a sufficiently impervious wall. 

" Beg your pardon," came from a voice behind them, " but will you 
kindly open a little, so that I can see through you? " They started, 
turned, and discovered the artist, who nodded his thanks. The chil- 
dren would gladly have made a circuit and looked over his shoulder, 
but they were not invited. 

" You have a delightful subject," said Mr. Nathan Bodley. 

" Quite so," said the artist. " It is all arranged for me, and 1 
have nothing to do but to copy it." 

" Do you know if the family is at home ? " asked Mr. John Bod- 
ley. 

" Yes," said the artist, " for a week past." 

" Then we can't see the house," said Mr. Bodley, " but I think 
we '11 go to the mill," and so, as he was the guide, he led his party 
through a gateway to a mill, which stands at one side of Guy's Cliff, 
where they had a pretty view of the water, and the garden, and 
the rear of the house, where light smoke was curling from the 
chimneys. 

" One has to pay something of a penalty," said Professor Adams, 
" for owning an historic house or a picture gallery. He must submit 
to being besieged by tourists and sight-seers. I can conceive that 
one might finally be driven away. Think if one chanced to be liv- 



88 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

ing with his family about him in Shakespeare's house, and wished 
to lead a quiet, scholarly life, perhaps engaged in an examination of 
the Shakespeare traditions ! No placard or general advertisement 
would save him. He would have to give up the struggle finally." 

" What I cannot understand," said Mr. John Bodley, " is the mod- 
ern rage for travel and sight seeing. Our great-grandfathers had 
no such passion. Now you Americans cross an ocean and spend 
no end of money to see an old gravestone or a tumble-down wall, 
and we go off to Paris and Rome and walk about looking at the 
houses where famous men and women have lived. Is it simply be- 
cause it is easier to get about, with our steamboats and railways ? " 

" I think it is because we have more things to care about," said 
Mr. Nathan Bodley. " Ever since the world woke from its long nap 
in the Middle Ages, it has been taking a great deal more interest in 
itself People have learned to read, for one thing, and the more 
they fill their minds with what is in books, the more they want to 
see how the things look of which the books tell, — the battle fields 
where battles have been fought, the castles in which knights have 
lived, and the houses where poets were born. They want to make 
all these things real to themselves." 

" But I don't go so far back," objected Mr. John Bodley. " I only 
go back say to our great-grandfathers. They did not go sight seeing 
as we do. I don't believe ten of them made up a party and visited 
Guy's Cliff." 

a ^^Q 'yq none of us great-grandfathers," said John Bodley. 

" Nor were they at the time," laughed his father. " But come, 
what makes the difference ? " 

" I '11 tell you, Mr. Bodley," said Mrs. Van Wyck. " Depend upon 
it, it 's because the world has grown more democratic." 



A COUNTRY WALK. 



89 



« You 're more than half right, Phippy," said Cousin Ned, 
*^ There 's no doubt that the last three generations have seen a won- 




Kenilworth Castle. 



derful increase of interest in men because they are men and not be- 
cause they belong to our particular class. The fact is, the world is 



90 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

getting acquainted with itself, and it does not require a special 
introduction as much as it once did. Do you know what interests 
me most in England, Mr. Bodley ? " 

" No." 

" It is such a sight as I saw once, when I saw your Dean Stanley 
walking through Westminster Abbey with a company of working- 
men on a Saturday afternoon, and showing them the monuments 
of great Englishmen." 

''Yes, that was fine," said Mr. Bodley. "It speaks well for the 
Dean, and it speaks well for the workmen." 

They came back to the road and followed it to Kenilworth. It 
was a delightful walk, noble trees shaded the road, and a footpath, 
broad and well kept, ran by its side. They passed through the vil- 
lage of Leek Wootton, which seemed to be famous for nothing. 

"Now this," said Professor Adams, "comes nearer to my idea of 
what an Ens-Hsh hamlet should be. These houses are much like 
those at Shottery, but they are cheerful and picturesque instead of 
having a forlorn and draggled look." 

" There is no railroad very near," said Mr. Bodley. " That has 
something to do with it." 

They passed carriages with ladies and gentlemen holding guide- 
books, and bicycles, and country carts, and occasionally a tramp like 
themselves, with the difference that he carried his worldly possessions 
in a handkerchief, hung from a stick. Kenilworth village was a 
straggling one, but very pretty to a traveler's eye. They climbed 
a hill, though it took them somewhat away from the direct road, 
because Mr. John Bodley wished them to see the castle in the dis- 
tance. There it lay before them, the ruined towers rising out of the 
green woods, and they stood long admiring it, and then followed a 



A COUNTRY WALK. 91 

little footpath which led across the fields. The path carried them 
through the gateway of the old abbey, and past an old chapel or 
other ecclesiastical building, now used for a stable. Some sheep 
were feeding under the gateway, and it seemed an appropriate way 
of visiting an old ruin to pass through another ruin to reach it. 

They came into the road presently and followed it to the castle 
entrance. A big placard advised all travelers to supply themselves 
with guide-books and views within the gate. It furthermore in- 
formed our friends that the ruins were the property of vthe Earl of 
Clarendon, and that he charged threepence admission for the pur- 
pose of keeping the ruins in repair. 

" I suppose that means," said Mr. Nathan Bodley, " that if the 
ruins show any sign of becoming habitable, or putting out new roofs, 
then the Earl uses our threepence to keep them ragged." 

The gate-house had been turned into lodgings for the use of the 
keeper of the ruins, but once within the inclosure, our friends found 
themselves delightfully unmolested, and could ramble about the 
grounds and climb about the castle to their hearts' content. 

" Now, Mr. Bodley," said Professor Adams, " it is 3^our turn to be 
showman and give us the necessary information with which to take 
possession of these ruins." 

" I 'm not much of an antiquarian," said Mr. Bodley, " but I be- 
lieve the first of it was built in Henry I.'s time, and Henry HI. gave 
it to the Earl of Leicester. It came back to the crown once and 
again in times of rebellion, and Queen Elizabeth gave it to her fa- 
vorite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and he built the most im- 
portant parts." 

" Oh, I remember," said Margaret Bodley. " I have read all 
about it in Scott's novel, where he tells of Queen Elizabeth's visit to 
the Earl." 



92 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

" Yes," said Sarah, " and don't you remember about poor Amy 
Kobsart ? " 

"But I don't understand," said Charles, "why the castle should, 
Ibe such a heap of ruins. Queen Elizabeth did not reign so very long 
before the first Englishmen came to America, and we have buildings, 
wooden buildings too, almost as old as the colony." 

" Well, Charles," said Mr. Bodley, " if you had had a revolution 
and a Cromwell, I think even your wooden buildings would have 
disappeared." 

" Oh, did Cromwell capture Kenil worth ?" 

" Not with an army. The castle had come into possession of 
the crown again ; they had a way of seizing on places, and when 
Cromwell came into power he bestowed it on certain of his officers 
who are said to have torn it down for the sake of the material, 
though I never knew exactly what they did with all the stones. 
Afterward Charles 11. gave it away to the Earl of Rochester, and it 
passed by marriage from one to another till now it belongs to the 
Earl of Clarendon." 

" Why is it ? " asked Mrs. Bodley, " that ruins of old castles are so 
much more interesting to us than well preserved castles ? " They 
were sitting in a wide stone window-seat in a corridor off" from the 
great banqueting hall, the walls of which were standing, though the 
roof was gone. A lovely landscape spread before them, and below 
in the grass were children at play, whose laughter sounded sweetly 
in the distance. 

" I suppose it is because we have a kind of sympathy with them," 
said her husband. " We imagine what once went on here ; we 
know there can be no grand banquets again, or processions of lords 
and ladies, and we feel as if the poor old castle had been deprived 
of some of its pleasures." 



A COUNTRY WALK. 93 

" Then," said Mr. Van Wyck, " I think something is due to the 
way the old building becomes a part of nature. The ivy climbs 
over the stones and covers them ; the moss and the grass grow in 
the crannies, a soft green mantle is spread over the stone, and by 
and by it looks as if these towers grew out of the soil and these 
arches sprang as trees and shrubs spring. The whole becomes a part 
of the landscape, and it affects us as a grave affects us." 

" Nevertheless, give me a log-cabin with children playing about 
the door," said Mrs. Van Wyck. " Ruins and nature go very well 
together, but human life and houses come closer to us." 

" Ah, Phippy," said her husband, " but that is just what makes 
these ruins so interesting. It is because people have lived in them. 
Just think how we glorify some of our commonplace old houses in 
New York and Boston, or one of Washington's sleeping-places. A 
g;reat man slept in a house — the very least thing, one would think, 
that he could do for it — and straightway it becomes famous." 

" It strikes me," said Mr. John Bodley, " that we are accumulating 
historic memorials and preserving them to such an extent that after 
awhile the world will be a vast museum." 

" A few revolutions will knock the museums to pieces, Mr. Bod- 
ley," said Cousin Ned. 

" And give us new ones ? " he retorted. 

They climbed the stone staircases and mounted as high as they 
could go. They tried to reconstruct in their imagination the various 
parts of the castle and grounds, and then, after eating a lunch which 
they had brought with them, they took up their march for Coven- 
try. It was about as far from Kenil worth to Coventry as it had 
been from Warwick to Kenilworth. The road, if anything, was more 
lovely. It passed through a rich and highly cultivated country, and 



94 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

the over-arching trees shaded it so finely that it was like walking all 
the way through a park. 

Coventry itself was scarcely more to them than the end of their 
walk. To be sure they strolled through the streets, and visited St. 
Michael's Church and St. Mary's Hall. The church is the largest or 
one of the largest parish churches in England. There was nothing to 
break the noble length and breadth of the interior, and the sunshine, 
streaming through the windows in the clere-story beneath the roof, 
carried the colors of those windows down into the great, beautiful 
church, bathing all in a fine and varied light. The ahnost flat ceil- 
ing put up in the sixteenth century had its own lovely weather-stain 
color. In St. Mary's Hall, too, they saw an admirable examj)le of 
an old, richly carved interior, with great windows, and a kitchen still | 
used, where were spits eight feet long ; but the old fireplace had 
been modernized. 

They found also a silk-weaving establishment which they visited, 
for Coventry has always been fiimous for its ribbons. They saw the 
looms at work making Christmas markers and the like. It was a 
pretty sight to see the work, but they could not well praise the taste 
of the workmen. They tried to find some book-marks which they 
could buy, but there were none that were, not ugly. The figures 
were not printed upon the silk but woven in it. If the designs had 
been good, one might have admired the process more. The hand- 
kerchiefs and ties and garters were prettier. 

They walked back to the railway station where they were to find 
their luggage, for they had thought it possible, when they left 
Warwick, that they should sleep at Coventry, but it was still early 
and they determined to go on to Birmingham. 

" We have been to Coventry," said Charles, " but we were not 



ROUNDHEAD AND CAVALIER. 95 

sent there. I wonder why people talk of being sent to Coventry, 
as if into some kind of disgrace. Do you know, father ? " 

"No, but Cousin Ned probably does. Why was it, Ned ? " 

" I don't know. We must ask Mr. Bodley." 

*' Don't ask me," said Mr. John Bodley, and so they asked Mr. 
Van Wyck, but he was as ignorant as the rest. 

" Was it not," asked Mrs. Nathan Bodley, timidly, " because Cov- 
entry was a stronghold of the Puritans in the civil war, and the 
Royalists outside used to send in country Puritan gentlemen, be- 
cause they did not w^ant them in their company ? I think I have 
read something of the sort." 

" Bravo, Blandina ! " said her husband. " As we don't any of us 
know so much, we '11 accept you cheerfully as a new historical au- 
thority for this party." 



CHAPTER VI. 

ROUNDHEAD AND CAVALIER. 



The Bodleys and their English kinsfolk had come to Birmingham, 
not so much to see the town as because it was a convenient stop- 
ping-place, for they all wished to visit Worcester, and there they 
would be obliged to separate, since their journeys lay thence in dif- 
ferent directions. 

" I always make out to go to the musical festival, and take John 
and Margaret when I can," said Mr. John Bodley the next morning, 
as they were all seated in the train on the way to Worcester, driv- 
ing through fog and smoke. 



96 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY, 

"Is it held each year at Worcester? " asked Mrs. Bodley. 

" No. It represents the three choirs of Worcester, Gloucester, and 
Hereford, and meets by turns in the cathedrals of those cities. The 
festival itself is about a hundred and forty years old. A few years 
ago there was a good deal of opposition to it, or rather to the hold- 
ing of the festival in the cathedral, for some of the clergy especially 
objected that there was nothing distinctively religious about the 
music. Indeed, the Earl of Dudley gave a new pavement to the 
cathedral at Worcester, on condition that the cathedral should no 
longer be used for these monster concerts, but there was a great 
tow-row raised by the town, and I believe the difficulty was adjusted 
by separating the secular music and giving that in a hall, and con- 
nectino; the music in the cathedral with relig-ious services." 

"Is this the first day of the festival, papa ? " asked Margaret. 

" No. It began Sunday last. They skipped Monday, began Tues- 
day, went on yesterday, and to-morrow they close with the •' Mes- 
siah " in the morning and an evening service." 

" I should think that if the clergy feel so about the matter," said 
Mr. Van Wyck, " they would object to having tickets sold for the 
performances in the cathedral." 

" There is a faint device for persuading themselves that these are 
not regular concerts ; the expenses of the festival are defrayed by 
subscriptions for seats, which are technically contributions in aid of 
the widows and orphans of the clergy of the diocese." 

" ^ A most ingenious paradox,' " quoted Mrs. Van Wyck. 

It was only an hour's journey from Birmingham to Worcester, and 
they found the town gay with flags and bunting iii the streets, and 
all the ways thronged with people, carrying their music under their 
arms. Tlie morning service was to begin at half after eleven, and 



ROUNDHEAD AND CAVALIER. 99 

after making their contributions to the widows and orphans, and re- 
ceiving in return little tickets entitling them to seats, they threaded 
the streets to the cathedral, and passed down under an archway to 
the banks of the Severn. There was a broad promenade by the 
river, but there were no seats where they might sit. So, after look- 
ing about they deposited themselves upon a brick platform at the 
back door of a house, whose garden reached down to the esplanade. 
A servant maid came out presently to sweep the bricks. She was a 
good-natured girl, and was rather concerned at the destitution of the 
party. 

" I 'm afraid you '11 take cold, ma'am, sitting on the bricks," she 
said to Mrs. Bodley, who perhaps had a frail air, if any one in the 
robust party had, and the maid stepping into the garden, brought 
out presently a shingle, which she offered her. 

" Thank you," said Mrs. Bodley, as she tucked it under her ; 
^' perhaps it would be more prudent ; but why are there no seats 
provided here ? " 

" It 's because of the floods, please," said she. " The river rises 
above where you are sitting, indeed, quite to the hedge, sometimes, 
upon the top of the wall." 

There were steps leading down to the water, and boats plying up 
and down, while the opposite banks showed a pretty country. 

"The Severn," said Sarah, musingly. "What do I know about 
the Severn ? I am sure there are some lines." 

" I know them," said Margaret. " They are Wordsworth's : — ■ 

" ' As thou these ashes, little Brook! wilt bear 
Into the Avon, Avon to the tide 
Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas, 
Into main ocean, they, this deed accursed 
An emblem yields to friends and enemies, 

L.cfC. 



100 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. i 

How the bold Teacher's doctrine, sanctified 

By truth, shall spread, throughout the world dispersed.' " J 

" That is something Uke it/' said Sarah, " but not exactly," 

" Oh, it is quite correct, I am sure," said Margaret. I 

" Sarah is tiiinking of this," said her father : — ■ 

" ' The Avon to the Severn runs, 
The Severn to the sea ; 
And Wickliffe's dust shall spread abroad, 
Wide as the waters be.' " 

" That is it," said Sarah. 

" They both come from Fuller's Church History," said Mr. John 
Bodley. " I can't recall the exact words of the passage,^ but Words- 
worth simply turned the prose into verse, with scarcely a verbal 
change." 

"So I suppose Wickliffe's ashes floated past where we are," said 
Charles. " Was the cathedral here then ? It must have been very 
much ashamed." 

" I am afraid," said his father, " that even in this highly Christian- 
ized age which celebrates Wickliffe in a semi-millennial, pure religion 
occasionally gets overlooked." 

" Yes," said Mr. John Bodley, " much as I enjoy these musical 
festivals, I can't help wishing that there was more singing done by 
the very poor people of England. There 's not much song in their 
lives." 

^ Mr. Bodley looked up the passage at home and found it to read thus : " Thus this 
brook hath conveyed his ashes into Avon ; Avon into Severn; Severn into the narrow seas; 
they into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wickliffe are the emblem of his doctrine 
which now is dispersed all the world over." — Fuller's Church History, section ii., book 4 j, 
paragraph 53. 




HOLY THURSDAY AT ST. PAUL'S. 



ROUNDHEAD AND CAVALIER. 103 

" You have a touch of it in the singing of the Charity Children at 
St. Paul's," said Professor Adams. 

" Ah, yes, that 's a beautiful thing. Did you ever go to one of 
those festivals ? " 

" Once, and I thought it heavenly." 

" So it is, so it is, but I 'm a bit of a radical myself, and I can't 
quite make out heaven as populated by the poor only in aprons and 
caps. " 

" What does he mean ? " whispered Sarah to Cousin Ned, who 
laughed. 

" You have mystified my little cousin," said he. " She does not 
know that this festival at St. Paul's is one in which the children 
from various charity schools in London, all in their neat uniforms, 
gather once a year at St. Paul's Cathedral, when they sing the ser- 
vice, a sermon is preached, and a collection is taken up." 

"Oh, I remember ! " exclaimed Sarah. " Is not that the festival 
in Blake's poem of Holy Thursday ? " 

" To be sure. Do let us hear it, Sarah ; perhaps Margaret and 
John here do not know the poem." 

So Sarah gladly repeated William Blake's poem of 

HOLY THURSDAY. 

'Twas on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean, 
Came children, walking two and two, in red, and blue, and green: 
Gray-headed beadles walked before, with wands as white as snow, 
Till into the high dome of Paul's, they like Thames' waters flow. 

Oh, what a multitude they seemed, these flowers of London towB, 
Seated in companies they were, with radiance all their own; 
The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs, 
Thousands of little boys and girls raising their innocent hands. 



104 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice of song, 

Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of heaven among : 

Beneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of the poor. ' 

Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door. 

"That," said Cousin Ned, "is a poet's rendering of a London fes- 
tival, but I do not think one needs to be a poet to perceive the 
beauty in that scene in St. Paul's. I can never forget that Amen 
which swelled from those thousands of little throats at the end of 
each Collect. The prayer was lost to me. I could not hear it. 
There was perfect stillness, only broken at these intervals by the 
two musical notes of Amen. Then I remember that fluttering of 
countless white aprons as the little girls buried their faces in them 
at prayer. 

" ' Thousands of little boys and girls raising their innocent hands.' 

It is quite worth while to change all one's plans of foreign travel 
in order to take in this one festival." 

The sound of the cathedral bells warned them that it was time 
to make their way to their seats, so they passed through the arch- 
way again, and entered the door which was marked for those who 
were to find seats with our friends in the north aisle. There were 
one or two Collects, the Lord's Prayer, and Versicles, and then the 
music began. Next to Mr. Nathan Bodley sat an old gentleman who 
was overflowing with enthusiasm, and was perpetually whispering 
in a loud whisper to his neighbor, " I 've heard 'em all," he said 
hoarsely to Mr. Bodley, from " Malibran down. Titiens was the 
great one ! Did you ever hear her ? " 

"No," whispered Mr. Bodley. 

" Ah ! you should have heard her shake in ' La Traviata ! ' " and 
the old gentleman shook his head in mysterious sympathy. The 



ROUNDHEAD AND CAVALIER. 



105 



music was a mass of Cherubini's, and when it was over there was a 
recess of an hour. Our friends used part of the time to look about 




The Nave, Worcester Cattiedral. 



the cathedral. For a number of years restoration had been going 
on, and was now complete, so that the entire effect was almost that 



106 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. \ 

of a new cathedral. Even King John, lying in state in the centre 
of the choir, the oldest regal monument in England, had been gilded 
from head to foot. 

" I like the old, crumbly buildings best," said Mr. Nathan Bodley. 

"Do you?" said his cousin. -'For my part, I like this. The 
restoration may not be always in exact keeping with the original, 
but I like the idea of each generation doing its part toward making 
the cathedral last. Possibly a hundred years from now people will 
sigh and say ' Just look at the middle of the nineteeth century ! 
that was the age of the revival of faith. Witness Worcester Cathe- 
dral.' " 

" Very good," said Mr. John Bodley, " so far as it goes. I, too,, 
think that cathedrals should be used and not be mere museums of 
curiosities." 

They went out into the streets and found a bake-shop where they ■ 
took a simple lunch, and then came back for the afternoon part of 
the festival. Mendelssohn's " Hymn cf Praise " wa*s rendered, and 
that was more familiar to the older members of the party, so it wa» 
especially delightful to hear. They left the aisle and stole gently 
into some unoccupied seats in the choir, whence they could look 
westward to where the chorus and musicians were. The singing 
was lovely, and it came from such a distance and traveled down 
such a noble aisle that when it reached the ears of the Bodleys it 
seemed a part of the cathedral itself; as if those grave pillars and 
light arches had burst into sweet harmonies. 

A Collect and Benediction followed the music, and they left the 
cathedral, passing through the cloisters, and so out into the open 
streets, which were thronged with people who had been enjoying 
the festival, many of whom were to stay that evening also and hear 



ROUNDHEAD AND CAVALIER. 



107 



Barnett's Cantata of Longfellow's "Building of the Ship." What a 
pity it was that our friends could not join in the applause which 
would follow the rendering of a piece by their favorite poet ! It 
would have seemed to them like a true American invasion of Eno-- 

o 

land. They had, however, another errand in the hour that remained 
to them. Worcester was one of the notable places for an American 
to see, for here, in 1651, was fought Cromwell's last battle with 
King Charles II., and the victory which he then gained established 
his power in England, 




Cloisters, Worcester Cathedral. 



" It is almost an anniversary," said Professor Adams, " for it was 
two hundred and thirty years ago, within a few days, that the battle 
of Worcester was fouo-ht. Charles and his tired and cross soldiers 
entered the city on the 22d of August, and less than a week after- 
ward Cromwell had drawn up his forces before the city." 

" Do you suppose the city looked as it does now, Cousin Ned ? " 
asked Charles. 

" No. The cathedral was here, and the general direction of the 
streets was the same, but most of these houses have been built since- 
that day." 



108 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

'' How singular ! " said Sarah. " I always think of an English town 
as older than any of our American towns, but here is Worcester, not 
so old, according to you, as Boston, for Boston was founded in 1630, 
and the battle of Worcester was in 1651. You say there is not 
much here, besides the cathedral, older than that." 

"Old age in a town, Sarah, dejoends a good deal on our knowledge 
of it, and only partly on the monuments in it. If John or Margaret 
here were to go to Boston, 1 fancy it would not seem very old to 
them, even if they visited the North End ; but if you are able to 
trace back the history, step by step, the founding of it seems a 
long while ago, even though you can find no marks of the earliest 
Boston." 

" This is an old building," said Charles, as they came upon, a 
quaint, mediaeval building not far from the Sidbury Gate. 

" This is the Commandery," said his cousin, ''■ where the king es- 
tablished himself when he entered the city. It is used now as a col- 
lege for the blind sons of gentlemen." 

" It was the son of a blind gentleman who occupied it then," said 
Mrs. Van Wyck. 

" Why, Aunt Phippy," said Charles, " was King Charles I. blind ?" 

" Very blind, Charles. He could not see beyond his royal per- 
son." 

"Oh!" 

" Come," said Cousin Ned, " we '11 climb Red Hill, where we shall 
see the town, and can tell better about the battle." So they fol- 
lowed the old London road up the hill. The road, before leaving 
the town, rose somewhat abruptly up Green Hill, and then fell again 
to rise further on in Red Hill. They kept on to a fork in the road, 
where a guide-post pointed one by the right to Oxford and London 



ROUNDHEAD AND CAVALIER. 



109 



toy way of Evesham, and by the left also to Evesham. There was a 
scrubby, half-heath looking place at the top of the hill. 

" It was not far from here," said Cousin Ned, as they stood facing 
the city, " on our right, that most of Cromwell's forces were posted, 
while Charles was posted nearer the Sid bury Gate, and over there 
beyond the Severn on our extreme 
left. Cromwell's object was to pre- 
vent the king from moving toward 
London, and so he had marched 
from Evesham and planted himself 
here right in the king's path. The 
armies lay thus till the morning of 
the 3d of September, when Crom- 
well began sending his forces down 
the hill here on the left, to be ready 
to attack the king's forces, of which 
the larger part was by Powick 
bridtre, the other side of the Teme. 
Do you see the little Teme where it 
Jlows into the Severn over there ? " 

" Yes, I think I make it out." 

" Charles could see it, too, for he was in the tower of the cathe- 
dral, watching the movements of the two armies. He saw Crom- 
well's men bridge the Teme, near where it joins the Severn, cross 
it, and so place themselves between the town and the royal army at 
Powick bridsre. More and more men came down from Red Hill, 
where we stand, and steadily pushed the royal forces, which were 
retreating step by step upon the town. Charles suddenly deter- 
mined to make an attack with his men upon the small force which 




Oliver Cromwell. 



!| 



110 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

was left here, and up the hill he came. The men stationed here had 
the advantage of position, and kept the king's forces at bay mi til 
Cromwell could hurry back from the river with reinforcements. 
Back he came and drove the attacking party down the hill toward 
Sidbury Gate, where was the king's fort. Fort Royal. It was now 
nightfall, and Cromwell ordered an assault upon the fort which was 
carried by storm. Then the victorious army went through the 
streets of the town, driving the king's men before them, killing and 
pkmdering. It must have been a terrible night." 

" And what became of the poor king ? " asked Sarah. 

"He got away, but how no one seemed to know. They show 
the house where he was concealed, and I will point it out to you 
when we go back to the town." The house was in the Corn Market, 
an old timber house, with the date 1577, and the letters W. B. and 
E. D., with the inscription "Love God. Honor the King." 

" How singular ! " said John, as they stood looking up at it, " that 
the king should have found shelter under these words. I wonder 
what Cromwell thought when he read them. I suppose he thought 
if he obeyed the first part he might let the rest go." 

"I doubt if he paid much attention to inscriptions on buildings 
that night, John," said his father. '' He was too much absorbed in 
making his victory complete and final. He thought this the crown- 
ing victory of the war." 

"Yet it was after all but the beo-innino; of his most serious work," 

Do " 

said Professor Adams. " Fighting is less difficult than governing a 
nation half of which does not want you to govern." 

"But he was an Englishman," said Mr. John Bodley, '-and we 
find it a great deal easier nowadays to accept Cromwell as a hero 
than we once did. We think less of the royal family and more of 
England, you know, and Cromwell, as I said, was an Englishman." 



ROUNDHEAD AND CAVALIER. Ill 

" He changed English history ; there is no doubt about that," 
:said Mr. Nathan Bodley. " He did not change American history so 
much. We were out of the way of the civil war, and did our best 
to keep out of the mischief." 

^' Yet the Enghsh Commonwealth and New England had much to 
do with each other," said Cousin Ned. " It was the success with, 
wdiich Massachusetts managed her affairs without the help of a king, 
and without bishops, that made Englishmen think they could have 
the same government in England." 

" Well, the same thing is going on upon a larger scale now," said 
Mr. John Bodley. " There are a good many people in England who 
watch the United States, and ask themselves why we should not be 
better off here with the same kind of government." 

" For all that," said Mr. Van Wyck, " no great nation ever really 
copies another, and if England ever tires of kings and princes she 
will not deliberately try to make herself like the United States. A 
nation is made up of an infinite number of parts, all of which are 
growing all the time. England has been outgrowing feudalism in 
many ways, and such a conflict as that between Roundheads and 
■Cavaliers is no longer possible. Parliament has the power now, and 
the king will never again be found fighting it." 

" No," said Mr. John Bodley. " The parties will be otherwise, and 
they will be within Parliament. But come, what a set of prophets 
we are getting to be. If we don't take care, we shall be as bad as 
the astronomer who did n't see the ditch. My train must be nearly 
due." 

They had been slowly sauntering in the direction of the station, 
and now hastened to it. Mr. Bodley and his two children were 
going south, on their way home to Salisbury, and thus the time 



112 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

of parting had come, for the rest were going north on farther pil- 
grimages. 

" But we shall see you soon," said Mr. John Bodley. " Remember 
you are to give us a day or two of your precious time at Salisbury." 

" Never fear," said Mr. Nathan Bodley. " We shall not go out of 
England without seeing the home of the English Bodley family." 

So, with much handshaking, and waving of handkerchiefs, the 
English Bodleys went south, and shortly after the American Bodleys 
made their way north. They went back first to Birmingham to get 
a fresh start, and spent the night there. In the morning they took 
a walk out to the suburbs of the city to Aston House, and its little 
park. It was a bright sunshiny morning, and even the dull brick 
houses in the commonplace streets through which they passed 
seemed to catch a little of the sunshine, and to look less common- 
place. Aston House stood just on the outskirts of the city, and the 
park was simply the grounds about the house, some forty acres or 
more, which with the house had been bought by the Birmingham 
people twenty years before for a park and a museum. 

" You have not told us what we came out here for, Ned," said 
Mrs. Van Wyck ; " it could not have been to make us read these 
cautionary placards, for we have brought no sandwiches with us." 

" What placards ? " asked Sarah. 

" Don't you see, child, w^hat the mayor of Birmingham begs you to 
do ? He wants you not to leave your sandwich papers here, but to 
put them back into your lunch-baskets and carry them home again." 

" Most excellent advice, Phippy," said her cousin, " and I don't 
think it is at all beneath a mayor's dignity to remind people of a 
little thing like that." 

"Nor of a poet's," said Mr. Bodley. " You see the advice is from 



ROUNDHEAD AND CAVALIER. 115 

a speech by William Morris. But come, Ned, what is Aston House, 
and why should it be preserved ? " 

" Let us read the inscription over the doorway," said Cousin Ned. 
The house was built on three sides of a hollow square, the main en- 
trance being in the middle, and over the doorway was the inscrip- 
tion, cut iu stone : — 

" Sir Thomas Holte of Huddersdon in the Countie of Warwick, 
knight and baronet began to build this house in Aprill in Anno 
Domini 1618 in the 16th yeare of the raigne of King James of 
England &c. and of Scotland the one and fiftieth, and the said Sir 
Thomas Holte came to dwell in this house in May in Anno Domini 
1631 in the seaventh yeare of the raigne of our soveraigne lord 
King Charles and he did finish this house in Aprill, Anno Domini 
1635 in the eleventh yeare of the raigne of the said King Charles. 

''Laus Deo." 

" That is sufficiently explicit. The baronet was evidently a very 
precise and punctilious gentleman," said Mr. Van Wyck, " and I sus- 
pect he was a very loyal subject of his sovereigns." 

" Just so," said Cousin Ned. " Sir Thomas Holt was a Cavalier 
and staunch Royalist. Charles I. was entertained here in 1642, and 
we shall see his bedroom, if you care anything about it, when we go 
in. What interests me about the place is that it gives us a chance 
to see a private house which was attacked by the town's people, 
aided by Cromwell's troops, because the owner was a Royalist. The 
cannon shattered a part of the staircase, and other damage was done, 
but the house was surrendered before it was destroyed, and Sir 
Thomas paid a heavy fine to get clear." 

" What a vindictive fellow you are, Ned," said Mr. Nathan Bodley. 
" You seem to delight in these battles and house-burnings." 



116 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

" Oh, not at all," said Cousin Ned, " but I think these little things 
help us to imagine the war better." | 

" There are plenty of them at home," said Mr. Van Wyck. 

" Yes, and yet how little our northern people know about it. But 
in England in the civil war it was neighbors who fought, and that 
always seems to me to add to the terrors of war." 

They went within and saw the shattered staircase, and King 
Charles's chamber, and the great reception hall, and the long gal- 
lery. Over the chimney-piece in the hall was a tablet with these 
verses : — 

"If service be thy nieane to thrive 
Thou must therein remain 
Both silent, faithful, just and true, 
Content to t'ake some paine. 

" If love of virtue may allure 
Or hope of worldly gaine 
If fear of God may thee procure 
To serve doe not disdaine." 

" Well, I suppose Sir Thomas took that to himself, when he served 
his sovereign faithfully," said Mrs. Bodley. 

" Yes," said her husband, " he evidently meant it for everybody, 
for he put it here where all could see it when they came in, and not 
in the servants' hall." 

" What a pity," said Sarah, " that some of these fine old Cavaliers 
did not come over to America. The Puritans were all very well, 
but I think one or two people like Sir Thomas Holt would have 
done no harm." 

"Why, Sarah," said Charles, "they did come! Don't you know 
that a good many came to Virginia and settled there ? " 

« Did they, Cousin Ned ? " 



A PILGRIMAGE. 117 

" To be sure, and especially when Cromwell and the Puritan party 
got the upper hand, many of the king's party went to Virginia. In- 
deed at one time there were so many there that they were ready to 
raise the standard of King Charles II. even before his friends in 
England." 

" It 's a pity," said Mr. Van Wyck, " that New England has had 
so many more historians than Virginia. The two countries ought to 
have their histories told to our children, so that each should get 
its fiiir share. The mother of presidents was the daughter of 
kings." 

" Never mind," said his wife, stoutly ; " New England is the nurse 
of men, and she is the daughter of ideas." 

"Bravo, Phippy ! " said her brother Nathan. "Keep your flag 
flying." 



CHAPTER VII. 

A PILGRIMAGE. 



The little excursion to Aston House used the morning only, and 
after lunch our friends left the Queen's Hotel, which was under the 
same roof as the railway station, and took a train to the north. 

" I wish we could stop at Lichfield on our way to Bawtry," said 
Mr. Van Wyck. " I am very willing to make a pilgrimage to the 
cradle of the Pilgrims, but I should not mind paying my respects to 
Sam Johnson on the way, for he is a sort of half-way house to the 
Pilgrim Fathers." 

" Dr. Johnson was a stout Tory, Philip," said Mr. Nathan Bodley. 



118 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

" I don't think he would reUsh beinoj named with the Pilg:rim 
Fathers." 

" For all that he had a good deal of the stuff out of which they 
were made. Don't you think that a man who would do penance 
for the sins of his youth when he was old and famous must have 
had a pretty good conscience ? " 

'•' I have forgotten the story." 

" Then I '11 tell it, for I believe our train goes through Lichfield 
and not far from Uttoxeter. When Dr. Johnson was a boy and liv- 
ing with his parents in Lichfield, his father was an old man who had 
been a pretty successful bookseller, but in his old age was rather 
poor. Instead of keeping a comfortable bookshop, he was forced to 
peddle his books, and he was in the habit of going to the neigh- 
boring market-place of Uttoxeter on market-day, and setting up 
a bookstall there. One day he asked his son Sam to go for him. 
The old gentleman was feeble and half ill, and it was a good deal 
for him to stand in sun or rain all day in the market-place selling a 
few books. Sam was a big, clumsy fellow, who, so far as flesh and 
bones went, might easily take his father's place, and being a youth 
of much readinsr and knowledo-e of accounts, he could well under- 
take to sell the books. But, with all that, he was a boy of pride and 
sensitiveness. He could bear to have his father stand there and sell 
books, but he could not bear to go himself. He thought very likely 
that people would laugh at him, for he was an ungainly looking 
fellow, with his face twitching and his head rolling after a curious 
fashion, and besides that, he meant to be a scholar, and I suppose he 
thought it beneath a scholar to sell books in the street. 

" At any rate Sam Johnson refused to go, and his old father went 
instead. I never heard that the old gentleman reproved him or 



Ji PILGRIMAGE. 121 

€hicled him for it afterward, but that would have been quite un- 
necessary, for the boy's conscience punished him much more se- 
verely. For years he remembered his undutiful conduct. He never 
thought of his father, I warrant, without remembering how he had 
let him go to Uttoxeter market-place and sell books, instead of 
going himself; and so, when he was grown famous as a scholar and 
author, he made a pilgrimage to Uttoxeter, and stood for an hour 
or so in the market-place, with his hat in his hand, doing penance 
for the sins of his youth. The sun shone on his wig, and the rain 
came down, but he stood stock-still and bore it all, for he hoped the 
sun would burn out his sin, and the rain wash it away. The market 
men and women, and the small boys stood and looked at him, and 
pointed their fingers and laughed, but Dr. Johnson did not mind 
them. The more they did it, the sweeter was the sound, for they 
were paying him back for his undutiful behavior when he let his 
father stand thus in the sun and rain years before." 

" Well, Philip," said his sister, " I am very glad you have told 
us the story, for now I know the meaning of a picture which we 
saw at the Academy in London, by Adrian Stokes, called ' Dr. John- 
son's Penance.' " 

" Yes, the English painters like to take subjects froi^ their liter- 
ary history." 

It was evening before they reached the little town of Bawtry, 
after making one or two changes of trains. They went to the 
Crown Inn, but it was too dark to see much of the place. They 
knew only that they had come to a little market-town of no com- 
mercial importance, and midway between two little villages of less 
importance still to modern England, but bearing names which are 
often met with in American history, Scrooby and Austerfield. 



122 



THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 



The next morning they gathered their little company and made 
a pilgrimage to Austerfield. The path which took them was a foot- 
path of the most genuinely rustic character, for after crossing the 
railway track they entered by a stile upon a field : part of the way 
they had hawthorn hedges oi] either hand, and there were little 
gates and stiles; and finally, when they issued upon Austerfield it- 
self, they found a cunning English hamlet with little houses and big 
ricks. A narrow lane wound through the hamlet ; it passed a Prim- 
itive Methodist chapel, and the White Hart Inn, which looked, 
hardly large enough to hold the innkeeper ; finally the road brought 
them to the venerable parish church. The churchyard gate was 

locked, and Mr. Bodley went to the 
nearest cottage for the key. He 
knocked and knocked, till a voice 
across the road called out that no one 
was at home. On going over to con- 
sult the voice, he found that the key 
was kept by the parish clerk, who 
lived at the other end of the village. 

They all turned back as bidden, and 
found the clerk, finally, at his shoe- 
maker's bench with lapstone in his lap, pounding ujDon a shoe. He 
was a placid old fellow, and got up at once to put on his coat and 
fetch the key. 

" Do you suppose he has any idea," asked Mrs. Bodley, " why we 
have come to see his little church ? " 

" You 're Americans, I suppose," said the old man quickly, "come 
to see the church where Bradford was baptized ? " 

" Then there have been some before us," said Mr. Bodley. 




Austerfield Church 



A PILGRIMAGE. 123. 

" Oh, a-many, sir. Many Americans come here and some Enghsh ; 
they come to see Avhere the Pilgrim Fathers came from. There 's a 
good many Bradfords have been here." 

"Are there any Bradfords left in Austerfield ? " asked Professor 
Adams. 

" No, sir. The name 's not been known here since William Brad- 
ford's day." 

" And is there anything left of Bradford's house ? " 

" We can see it, sir, by walking a bit just beyond the church. It's 
been altered a good deal. There is n't much left of the old house, 
I believe." 

" It is the church, after all," said Mr. Van Wyck, " that plaj's the 
part of a shrine in these historical memorials. Houses go to ruin or 
are pulled down, but the church abides, sometimes restored, it is 
true, but often the most satisfectory peg on which to hang your 
memories. How old is the church, clerk ? " 

" It 's over eight hundred years old, sir," said he, with pride. 
'' You '11 admire that piece of Norman work over the porch," and he 
held them back to get a view of it. Then he turned the key in the 
lock and let them into the building. It was a quaint little church, 
with some interesting Norman work about the arches and capitals 
of the pillars. The chancel was held up by buttresses. The 
church was a chapel of ease to Bawtry, and the living was in the 
gift of Trinity College, Cambridge, which was obliged to keep the 
chancel in repair. The roof had once been open, but it made the 
church so cold that a plaster ceiling had been put in. The thick 
walls were covered with whitewash. The old font, a rough stone 
bowl, had been removed for some reason, and lay now on the floor 
of the church. 



124 TBE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 



1 



"I suppose William Bradford was christened in that font," said 
Mr. Bodley. " I 'd like very well to have it myself. You don't seem 
to have any use for it here." 

" Well, sir, there was a Mr. Bradford here from America, who 
tried to buy it, but they would n't sell it. And he offered to give 
a new and fine silver communion service for the one now in use, 
but they would n't do that either. If you '11 come up into the loft, 
sir, I think the best view of the church is up there." Poor old fel- 
low ! as if there could be much choice in this excessively humble 
building ! It did not take long to see all that was in the church, 
and there seemed to be no very ancient stones in the little church- 
yard without. Among the stones was one to a Priscilla. 

" Perhaps this Priscilla got her name from the same person as 
Priscilla Mullins," said Mrs. Van Wyck. 

" The name was undoubtedly given from the Priscilla of the New 
Testament," said her husband. "Just as the Roman Catholics go to 
the saints, the Puritans went to the Bible." 

" This village must have grown since William Bradford's time," 
said Professor Adams to the old clerk. 

" I can count fifty houses built here in my time," he replied. 

" Why, I should hardly think there were so many in the whole 
village. It 's not a very rich soil hereabout ? " 

" It 's a light, sandy soil, sir." 

" Well, the Pilgrims did not make an ill exchange. Cape Cod is 
a more varied land than this. Where are the records, by the way, 
of Auster field church ? " 

" The Vicar at Bawtry has them, sir. He '11 show them to you." 

" And is Scrooby church as old as this ? " 

" It 's not as old, sir. It 's been much improved, I hear, sir, but 
I 've not seen it since I was a boy." 



A PILGRIMAGE. 125 

"Just think of that, Sarah," said Charles. " Why, Scrooby is only 
a mile or so from here. What a stay-at-home man ! " 

They bade the old clerk good-by at his cottage door and retraced 
their way across the fields to Bawtry. The party of seven hardly 
liked to inflict themselves upon the vicar, and so, while the rest 
strolled by the way. Professor Adams went alone and introduced 
himself 

" I think he must have been in the midst of a sermon," he said, 
when he came out, " for he was some little time coming to me, and 
very cordial when he bade me good-by. What a nuisance he must 
find these Americans who pester him about the records ! " 

" Did he show them to you ? " asked Charles. 

" Yes. They were on parchment, and I saw the page containing 
the register of Bradford's baptism ; that and all others written in 
the same hand, a very beautiful one, the work, I suppose, of the 
vicar of that day. ^ We do not write as well as that now,' said my 
vicar. ' Partly the fault of our pens,' I suggested. ' Very true,' 
said he, ' and I wish you Americans, who are so ingenious at invent- 
ing, would invent a decent pen for us.' I told him of Dr. Holmes's 
gold pen, which he had used for twenty years or so, and I showed 
him my stylographic pen." 

" That will never improve penmanship," said Mr. Bodley. 

" No," said Mr, Van Wyck, " and I don't believe pens have most 
to do with it. A good deal is due to leisure, which penmen now do 
not use, but more to the fact that penmanship, before printing was 
invented, was a fine art, like painting, and the traditions of the art 
had not died out when Bradford's name was written." 

They walked slowly down the broad road which led to Scrooby, 
about a mile to the south of Bawtry. There was a cluster of houses 



126 



THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 



there more considerable than that at Austerfield, with a laro-er 
church. There had been time here also for the houses to disappear 
which stood when Bradford and his friends were alive, and for a new 
town to arise, which already looked ancient. 

" The old manor-house, I suppose, is what we want to see," said 
Mr. Bodley. 

" Was that where the Pilgrims used to meet ? " asked Charles. 




Scrooby. 



" Yes, before they were pilgrims. The manor-house belonged to 
the Archbishop of York, and was occupied by William Brewster, who 
was the chief man of the village. He was the postmaster, — that is, 
he was master of a royaX post, — which meant then something more 
than a person to receive and sort letters. Scrooby was a post town 
on the great road from London to Scotland. When traveling was so 
difficult as it was then, the stopping-places on the great thorough- 
fares were places of consequence. At Scrooby travelers might stop 
overniffht. and kinsrs and aueens had rested here at the manor- 



A PILGRIMAGE. 127 

house. So William Brewster, living at the manor-house, was a man 
of consequence. Once a week, however, he opened the doors of his 
house to his neighbors, who came there to hold a religious meet- 
ing and read the Bible and pray. I suppose Bradford often came 
down from Austerfield to see Brewster and attend these meetings." 

" Here is the post-office, now," said Cousin Ned, " and a much 
more humble place than it was in King Charles's time." 

" Let us ask here for the manor-house," said Mr. Bodley. 

" I am afraid it has disappeared," said his cousin. " I think I re- 
member having heard so." Yes. The postmistress showed them in 
a field near by a clump of willows near which had been the foun- 
dations. Some gentlemen, she said, came with iron rods and felt 
about for it. The stables remained, but they had been turned into 
a farm-house. 

"So it is," said Cousin Ned, with a sigh. " To such shadows do 
all our historical memorials seem reduced ! To go into a farm- 
house and remember that it is made out of the stable attached to 
the manor-house, where Brewster and his friends met — that is 
getting a good way from history." 

" It seems to me," said Mr. Van Wyck, " that the people of 
Scrooby must have been pretty intelligent, if they came together 
in those days for such a purpose. I suppose they were farmers 
chiefly." 

" Yes, and their life was not more luxurious here than it after' 
ward was in New England. Indeed, I suppose that after the first 
struggle in a new land, they were better off than their neighbors 
were at home." 

" But what I was thinking of," continued Mr. Van Wyck, " was 
that there must have been some special -education for these plain 



128 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

people, if they could reach such a degree of spiritual liberty as the 
Pilgrims showed, and such quiet independence. The great and the- 
wise of England were not with them." 

" I have often thought of that," said Cousin Ned, " and I don't 
think the answer is a simple one. But we ought to remember that 
the Reformation doctrine had been at work in England for a hun- 
dred years, and besides that, Brewster and others like him, who- 
were the leaders, were educated men. They were trained at the 
Universities, and they were often the sons of farmers. Then the 
farmers themselves had often held their farms, father and son, for 
many generations, and w^ere the backbone of England." 

" I suppose I ought to know," said Sarah, " but was it from here 
that the Pilgrims went to Holland ? " 

" Yes, my dear cousin," said Charles, " they left this comfortable,, 
fertile country for the flat and peaceful Holland." 

" Oh, I know all that," said she, " but was it from Scrooby and 
Austerfield that the Pilgrim Fathers went, and were they all from 
these little villages?" 

" All the east of England," said Cousin Ned, " south of the Hum-^ 
ber, was more or less in sympathy with the Puritan party, and it was^ 
from this part of the country that most of the Englishmen came 
who had from time to time gone to Holland to get more religious 
freedom. There were at least two settlements of them in Holland^ 
when a company from Scrooby and its neighborhood, after being 
persecuted in many ways by the church and king, managed to sell 
their property and escape to Holland. Brewster and Bradford were 
prominent among them then, and were leaders when they after- 
ward came to Plymouth. Thus it was that Scrooby and Austerfield 
have come to be looked upon as the starting-point of the Pilgrim 
Fathers." 



A GROUP OF WORTHIES. 129 

" What a long road they have traveled since ! " exclaimed Mr.. 
Bodley. 

" Yes, for though the little colony in Plymouth really had less to 
do directly with the establishment of New England than the more 
considerable emigration ten years later of Winthrop and his associ- 
ates, people have always insisted upon regarding the Pilgrims as 
heroes ; they have honored them and their acts, and have dated a. 
great deal of our history from them. I suppose it is because the 
idea in the Plymouth Colony was simpler and higher, and appeals 
more directly to one's enthusiasm. Indeed, we are just beginning 
to notice how in reality the Pilgrim conception of religious free- 
dom and of faith was purer and nobler than the Puritan. Then 
their history was a brief one and is easily grasped. It comes to us 
hke a picture, while the history of the Massachusetts Bay Colony is 
a great deal more complex." 

" Well," said Mrs. Van Wyck, " I do not see that our historical 
researches in Austerfield and Scrooby have produced anything new, 
but I confess it does make it more real to me to have been here 
where the Pilgrim Fathers were once babies." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

A GROUP OF WORTHIES. 



Our party took a most roundabout route back to London. It 
was Saturday, the tenth of September, when they left Bawtry, and 
they resolved to spend Sunday in a cathedral town. Lincoln was 



130 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

the most convenient one for their purposes, and so they went thither 
and put up at the Spread Eagle. 

" We must be Americans or nothing," said Charles, " but I must 
say that the English spread eagle is a modest sort of bird, judg- 
ing by the inn which it patronizes." 

The inn stood at the foot of a hill, and up the steep hill they 
climbed more than once on that day and the next, for the cathe- 
dral was at the top of the hill, and there also were other inter- 
esting antiquities, the ruined castle and archways. The cathedral 
made them think of a great fortress. It was founded on a rocky 
cliff, and looked off upon a wide expanse of fen and meadow. 

" There is as much individuality about cathedrals as about men," 
said Mr. Van Wyck, " and, as with men, a good deal depends on the 
surroundings. This cathedral looks as if it were in command of the 
country." 

" What a centre it must be," said Mr. Bodley. " I had a seat in 
one of the stalls at evening prayer yesterday. Did you notice how 
each of the stalls had over it the name of one of the parishes of this 
diocese ? Over mine was ^ Carlton cum Thurlby.' They are two 
small parishes in Lincolnshire, and I suppose they hold the stall 
jointly, though brother Carlton and brother Thurlby could not pos- 
sibly sit there together ; they must take turns." 

" The best way to see a cathedral is to use it," said Mr. Van 
Wyck. " Then one gets out of the way of thinking of it as a work 
of art or a museum." 

" Yes," said his sister, " it is when we make things common that 
we get the most out of them. If we only said the Lord's Prayer 
once a year, it would not gain by its novelty, and I think it is very 
much so with this cathedral service. When I first heard it, I was 



A GROUP OF WORTHIES. 131 

struck with its beauty, and I regarded it very much as I would a 
lovely oratorio ; but now that it has become familiar, I find myself 
going along with it, instead of standing outside in admiration." 

" But what if you went through it every day, Blandina, as these 
men and boys do," said Cousin Ned. " Don't you suppose it would 
become mere formalism ? " 

" Why, it seems to me that it is like the cathedral itself. Here 
it is. It was built by men in an age when worship found this means 
of expression. There were meaner thoughts that went to the build- 
ing, as there are meaner thoughts which mingle with the daily pray- 
ers, but we have no reason for rejecting the better use because of 
the alloy. "We don't have to invent a new cathedral every time 
we want to worship. We go to the old one and use it, and find it 
just what we want. Of course one may pass this building or go 
through it every day and be thinking of something else, but he can 
also form a habit of visiting it every day with his best thoughts. 
One may form a habit of daily worship, as another may fall into a 
■careless form. It depends upon the person, and the form is not to 
be blamed." 

At all events our party acted upon this plan, and whenever they 
had the opportunity, they used the cathedrals they visited and knew 
them better for such use. Indeed, they had almost too much cathe- 
dral on Monday, for after making an early visit to the one at Lincoln, 
they took the train to Peterborough, where they had two hours or 
more, and then to Ely, and, after supper, to Cambridge for the night. 
They were ^struck by the individuality of the three cathedrals. If 
Lincoln was a king, Peterborough was a queen. The charm which 
at once arises from it is in the lovely setting which it has. It is like 
a great country church in its churchyard, while outside the church- 



132 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. j 

yard the living have built their houses and laid out their gardens, sa 
that one winds about the walls through the most tempting little 
lanes, beneath old arches, and the cathedral throws a quiet peace 
over all. There was nothing awful about this pile, but a sweet se- 
renity which made it, as Mrs. Bodley said, the best cathedral to live 
by which they had yet seen. 

With Ely, it is the great length of the cathedral which is impres- 
sive both within and without. It is said to be the longest cathedral 
in Europe, and the length seems to narrow and heighten the nave. 
Our party walked slowly back and forth several times, and always 
with an increased admii^ation for the severely beautiful lines of the 
nave. It seemed to stretch on and on, the pillars like the stems of 
trees in some woodland walk, and the purity of the arches was in 
agreement with the simplicity and singleness of effect. There was 
also a marvelous Gothic dome under the central tower, framed upon 
octagonal walls, and this octagonal base between the nave and the 
choh' gave opportunity for very beautiful effects as one stood at the 
corner and looked across, with a glimpse of the apparently endless- 
nave. 

They spent the night only at Cambridge, and the next day moved 
to Bedford, which they made their headquarters for a day or two, 
while they visited two or three places in the neighborhood which 
had an interest for them. They went first to Olney, the home of 
the poet Cowper. 

" What a picture this is," said Mr. Van Wyck, " of a dull, prosaic, 
eighteenth-century English village ! " 

And so it was. There was a broad village street, unusually broad, 
with an exceedingly graceful curve, lined on either side by houses 
of the greatest irregularity of roof, though there were no sharp con- 



A GROUP OF WORTHIES. 133 

trasts of prosperity and adversity. All were on the level that is just 
above poverty, and a sombre hue prevailed. A market-place was at 
the end of the village, and they caught sight of a sign pointing down 
a little lane to the poet Cowper's Summer-house. 

" That is where we want to go," said Cousin Ned, " for it was, 
you remember, Cowper's favorite resort, and stood between his house 
and Newton's." 

They ducked under a clothes-line on the way, and opening a gate 
into a kitchen garden, went toward a httle wooden structure where 
were already two visitors, an Englishman and a Mexican, who were 
entertained by the owner of the summer-Jiouse, a wide-awake man, 
either a miller or a baker, from his dress and floury appearance. It 
was hardly possible for all the party to crowd in at once, when there 
were already three within, but every one was polite, and each made 
way for the other. The summer-house itself had gradually sunk 
into the soil, so that all but the children had to stoop to enter it. 
The plaster walls were covered with names of visitors. Macaulay's 
was there, the miller or baker said, but he had never been able to 
find it. 

" The poet built this house himself, did he not ? " asked Mr. Van 
Wyck. 

" There 's no doubt of it ; but this table and chair were John New- 
ton's. The house stood midway between the vicarage and the 
poet's house, as you can see." 

"Did they climb over the wall to get at it ? " asked Charles. 

" If you look closely over there, my lad, you will see how the 
old wall to Cowper's garden, which was only a foot or two high, has 
been raised since to be five feet ; and you can see, furthermore, 
the place where there was, in his day, a gate in the wall, as well 
as opposite there in the vicarage wall." 



134 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

" I notice you say Cowper," said Mrs. Bodley. " I thought Eng- 
lishmen pronounced the name Cooper," 

" The poet and his family called it Cooper, ma'am. Lord Cooper, 
they say; but the people about Olney always say Cowper." 

" What a depressing spot ! " said Mrs. Van Wyck. " Of all places 
for a poet, this is surely the meanest I ever saw." 

" It is probably worse now than it was then," said her husband. 

'' No, sir," said the owner of the summer-house ; " there 's not 
much difference. There have been few changes in Olney. Have 
you been in his house ? " 

" No. Can we get through here ? " 

" You will have to go round, sir, to the market-place." 

Round they went, and came to the house, which had an arched 
passage leading through the centre of it, from the front to the back. 
It was a double house, as it had been in Cowper's time. There was 
nothing whatever attractive about it, and the changes which had 
been introduced were of a cheap, commonplace character. Its rear 
was toward an ill-conditioned part of the town, and the paved court 
was closed in by the wall which they had seen from the summer- 
house. The master of the house, who was deaf, good-naturedly 
showed them all that was to be seen, but everything had under- 
gone some little change. 

" Where is the little opening in the wall through which Cowper's 
pet hares used to come ? " shouted Mrs. Van Wyck to the master 
of the house. 

" Here," said he, laying his hand on the wall ; " it 's been papered 
over since." 

" Everything 's been papered over," she murmured. " I do not 
wonder that a man of 'Cowper's sensitive nature should have gone 
mad here." 



A GROUP OF WORTHIES. 



135 



" Let us get away," said Mrs. Bodley, " before we go mad too. 
For my part I would rather see Weston, where Cowper lived after 
leaving Olney. How far off is it ? " 

" How far is Wes- 
ton ? " shouted Mr. Bod- 
ley to the man. 

" It 's a mile and a 
half. I '11 show you the 
road, but come up-stairs 
first. I want to show 
you Cowper's bedroom. 
It's where I sleep now;" 
and so up - stairs they 
went to gratify the man, 
who was very good-na- 
tured, and took an hon- 
est pride in the house. 
He had no sort of reason 
for supposing the cham- 
ber to have been Cow- 
per's except that it was 
the best in the house. 
They left the place be- 
hind them and walked 
out to Weston. The chano-e thither from Olney was a cheerful one 
to them. What must it have been to poor Cowper! A pleasant 
hilly road led along the Ouse and over-looking it. Below them 
stretched field and meadow, with church spires rising from the foli- 
age, a quiet English landscape, just such a one, Mrs. Bodley said, as 




William Cowper. 



136 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

Birket Foster liked to draw. At the entrance of the village was a 
noble park of chestnuts known as the Wilderness, and memorialized 
by the poet. Here was a gateway but no gate, and they had quite 
the sense of being admitted to a gentleman's place. There were 
old thatch-roofed houses, and an inn with a battered sign-board 
inscribed Cowper's Oak, a dim picture of the Yardley Oak being 
decipherable. 

The lodge which Cowper had lived in was occupied now by a 
farmer, who sent one of his maids to show it to our party. The 
chief interest in the house was in Cowper's room above stairs. 

" How delightful ! " said Mrs. Bodley. " Only see, it is used now 
for a nursery. I suppose the children know John Gilpin's Ride," 
she added, turning to the maid. 

" Oh yes, ma'am, and his ' Lines on my Mother's Portrait.' Here 
are two lines that Cowper himself wrote," and she showed upon a 
window-shutter two lines in pencil which looked as if they had been 
traced more than once to preserve them. 

" Farewell, dear scene, forever closed to me ; 
Oh ! for what sorrows must I now exchange ye." 

There were two dates written under the lines, July 22d and 
28th, 1795. 

" I remember," said Mr. Van Wyck, " Cowper left Weston to go 
to the sea for change of air, but never recovered. He was to go on 
the 22d, but for some reason he was detained till the 28th." 

" Poor fellow," said his wife, " and the dear scene 1 suppose was 
this pretty quiet view over the garderl. Well, I am glad we have 
this place to think of him in instead of that dreadful Olney." 

They went back from Olney to Bedford, and they changed from 
Cowper to Banyan. 



A GROUP OF WORTHIES. 137 

''^ I wonder if we shall find much more of Bunyan than we did 
of Covvper," said Mrs. Bodley. 

" Not so much, I fancy," said her husband, " for Bunyan lived 
longer ago, and he was a much more obscure man in his own day. 
I believe, indeed, that not only is the gaol gone in which he wrote 
his ' Pilgrim's Progress,' but as there were two gaols here, antiqua- 
rians have not got over discussing in which one it was that Bunyan 
was clapped." 

They were walking in the town at the time, and came to a pretty 
green where stood a statue in bronze of the famous dreamer. 
Upon the stone pedestal were the words which well described the 
attitude of the figure : " It had eyes lifted up to heaven, the best of 
books in his hand, the law of truth was written upon his lips. . . . 
It stood as if it pleaded with men." 

" How admirable ! " said Mrs. Van Wyck. " Blandina, do you re- 
member whereabouts in ' Pilgrim's Progress ' those words are ? " 

"Yes. They describe the picture of a very grave person, which 
hung upon the wall of the House of the Interpreter." 

"I suppose Bunyan meant the very grave person," said Mr. Van 
Wyck. " to be in general an apostle of righteousness, and I think 
the sculptor made a very happy choice when he took the descrip- 
tion and applied it to Bunyan." 

" The children build monuments to the man whom their fathers 
put in gaol," said Mr. Bodley. 

" Well said, Nathan," said his sister. " You will be making epi- 
grams yet." 

" Not only so," said Mr. Van Wyck, " but I am told that they are 
restoring the old church at Elstow, where Bunyan lived, in honor of 
him." 



138 



THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 



Elstow was only a mile or two away, and the next mornino- 
they went there. They found a sleepy little village, but brisk work 
was going on in the restoration of the church. The master of the 
works showed them about, and explained how cautiously they were 
proceeding, preserving all the old details, replacing the stones and 
adding arches only when necessary for support. The old carving 
was used whenever a scrap was available, and the lines of it were 
carefully followed in the restored part. 




Elstow Green, with School-House. 



" Was the church in use in Bunyan's time ? " asked Sarah, for it 
had a most dilapidated look now. 

"To be sure," said the master; "it was here that he came, and I 
will show you where he got his idea of the wicket gate." So say- 
ing, he showed them in the church wall a portal closed by a wooden 
door, and in the door a smaller door or wicket. It was scored with 
names and initials and dates, but was to be carefully preserved 
without further change. 

Near by was the green, and upon it was a decrepit building of 



A GROUP OF WORTHIES. 139' 

\ timber and mortar, the upper story projecting, which had the repu- 
tation of being the school-house where Bunyan was taught. They 
tried the door, but it was locked. They looked through the yawn- 
ino" cracks, and saw that the lower story was used for the storage 
of some of the church furniture while the church was rebuilding. 
Upon inquiry, they found where the key to the upper part was 
kept, and going for it they brought back an old woman who opened 
the door and let them up the staircase into the rooms above. 




: 



r 1 < 1^^ 

iW^ 



Old Swan Inn, Elst 



" And what is this place ? " asked Mr. Bodley. 

" Please, sir, it's the Sunday-school room for the Independents of 
the Banyan meeting." 

" What a forlorn little upper chamber ! " said Mrs. Van Wyck. 

" Yes, it 's an upper chamber," said her husband, smiling. 
" There may be a good deal in common between this humble meet- 
ing-place and the stately church which we just saw." 

The village street was very quaint, and there were houses in it 
which might easily have been seen by Bunyan, but the house which 



140 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

was called by his name was the most unlikely relic of all, being not 
over a hundred years old, and used now as a little shop for the sale 
of candy and ginger ale. 

" There are two other places in this neighborhood," said Professor 
Adams, that evening in Bedford, " which we might visit, connected 
with the names of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington." 

" By all means let us go," said Mr. Bodley. 

" Well," said Professor Adams, " which shall we visit first, Ecton, 
where the Franklins came from, or Little Brington, the home of the 
Washingtons ? " 

" What is there to see at Ecton ? " asked Mrs. Van Wyck. 

" It was at Ecton that Josiah Franklin lived, the father of Benja- 
min. There was a house there known as the Franklin house, but 
the squire, I am told, tore it down, when he rebuilt the village, on 
sanitary grounds." 

" Benjamin Franklin would not have objected to that. But 
there is no house connected with the Franklins then ? " 

" No." 

" Are there any Franklins left in the village ? " 

" Not one. The name has not been known in the village during 
"this generation." 

" Then, what is there ? " 

" Nothing, except that Franklin's flither came from Ecton." 

" Let 's not go. I am getting out of conceit of these very shad- 
owy historical memorials." 

"But, Ned," asked Mrs. Bodley, "Is it any better at Little 
Brinu-ton ? " 

" N — o," said Professor Adams with reluctance. " That was the 
liome of a Washington family and there are tombs and so forth 



A GROUP OF WORTHIES. 141 

there ; but I may as well confess, for you would drag it out of me if 
1 did not, that antiquarians have failed to satisfy themselves that 
our Washington belonged to the family at Little Brington." 

" Why, it would be wrong to go," said Mrs. Van Wyck, — " posi- 
tively wrong. We should be encouraging a mere hypothesis. We 
should be helping to establish an untrustworthy tradition. What 
a disgrace to seven historical students. How could we ever go 
home and face Lucy ! " 

" Then we may as well go back to London ? " asked Charles. 

"By way of Groton," said Cousin Ned. So they went by way of 
Groton, which was, to be sure, rather a roundabout way to London, 
and one not to be taken if the traveler were in a hurry. They 
went back to Cambridge, and then to Bury St. Edmunds, and from 
there to Sudbury, where they put up at the Rose and Crown. 

" At . length we appear to be in a veritable English inn," said 
■Sarah, who was critical on such subjects. " Here is a paved court- 
yard, and a gallery, and lots of staircases. Let us stay here for- 
ever." 

" Why not go to Groton this evening," said Charles, " and put up 
at a real, genuine, unsophisticated village inn ? This is a market- 
town, and we 're in a high-toned inn." * 

" To be sure," said Cousin Ned, who had been here before, 
" there is the Fox and Hounds at Groton." 

"Oh, by all means," said Charles; " that must be the place." 

" Nevertheless," said his cousin. " I think we '11 stay here for one 
night." 

There was rain in the night, and it looked threatening at break- 
fast, but they made up their minds to take the risks, since rain in 
England was a commonplace affair. 



142 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

« Only think," said Mr. Van Wyck, " I asked the landlord if he 
thought it would rain, and he looked up at the sky and said he 
thought there might be a tempest, just as if he had said a sprinkle, k 
Is it because tempests are such very ordinary affairs in this mild 
country ? " 

" How odd ! " said Mr. Bodley. " It is exactly the way old people 
used to talk on Cape Cod when I was a boy. A tempest with them 
meant not a roaring, tearing hurricane, but a light rain with some 
thunder and lightning." 

" Perhaps Cape Codders were from Suffolk County." 

" No doubt some were. The names of some of the places indi- 
cate the east of England, as Yarmouth and Harwich." 

It was a drive of about eight miles to Groton, through a pleasant 
country, and they had no tempest after all. They passed through 
Boxford, and a mile further on came into Groton, 

" Here is j^our Fox and Hounds, Charles," said Cousin Ned, as 
they came in view of the inn ; " would you like to stay there ? " 

" Fox and Hounds ! " exclaimed Sarah. " There is just about 
room enough for one fox and two hounds to get inside. I should 
think Grasshopper and Ants would be a better name." 

It was the merest toy of a house, with just two windows in the 
upper story, but it surely was a large enough inn for Groton, where 
were only about half a dozen houses besides the church. 

" First, let us see where the old manor-house stood," said Cousin 
Ned. 

" Dear, dear," said Mrs. Van Wyck, " is this to be Scrooby over 
again ? Are we to see only a spot where something once was ? " 

'''' At least there is a little hole, Phippy," said her cousin ; and to 
be sure, when they left the road and entered the field, he showed 



A GROUP OF WORTHIES. 143 

■one or two aepreHsions in the sod, which were supposed to mark the 
site of old foundations, but the house had been removed beyond the 
recollection of the oldest inhabitant. 

" Now," said Charles, after they had surveyed it, " perhaps some 
■one in this crowd will have the goodness to tell me why I have 
come all this way to see a hole in the grass." 

They all turned and looked at him. 

« Why, you 've come to see what your great ancestor Governor 
Winthrop left behind him. Has he not. Uncle Nathan ? " 

" Quite so, my dear. This is where the Winthrop manor-house 
stood, and here is the old mulberry of which Governor Winthrop 
speaks in one of his letters. See how it has been propped up. It 
is bearing yet, and I think we are justified in eating one mulberry 
apiece from it." 

"I know what I should like," said Charles. "I should like to 
have Sarah knit me a pair of silk stockings from silk spun by silk- 
worms which have fed upon mulberry leaves from the tree belong- 
ing to my great ancestor Winthrop." 

" Such stockings would be too historically valuable," said Sarah, 
"to go on your commonplace feet. They would be hung up in the 
Old South in Boston, with an inscription upon them, ending, ' Knit 
by a lineal descendant of Peter Stuy vesant,' " 

" I think the Bodleian Library would be the place for the stock- 
ings," said Professor Adams. '' But come, the mulberry-tree is a 
solid connecting link. Let 's look at St. Bartholomew." 

So they turned back from the field and made their way to the 
church. It was built of rubble, and dated apparently as early as the 
fifteenth century. There were no very old stones in the yard, but 
•against the outer wall of the chancel was a cenotaph, having a 



144 



THE ENGLISH BOD LEY FAMILY. 



very old and illegibly carved stone for its top, while upon tbe new 
stones which made the sides was the inscription : — 

" IN THE ADJOINING CHANCEL WAS BURIED 
ADAM WINTHROP, ESQ WHO DIED IN 1562, AGED 54 
MASTER OF THE CLOTHWORKERS' COMPANY OF LONDON 
FIRST LORD OF THIS MANOR AND PATRON OF THIS CHURCH AFTER THE REFOR- 
MATION 
AND IN THIS TOMB 
ON WHICH THE ORIGINAL INSCRIPTION IS NEARLY EFFACED 
WERE BURIED HIS SOxN ADAM WINTHROP, ESQ. WHO DIED IN 1633, AGED 75 
ALSO LORD OF THE MANOR, AND ANNE HIS WIFE 
PARENTS OF GOVERNOR JOHN WINTHROP OF NEW ENGLAND. 
NEAR THIS SPOT WERE INTERRED OTHERS OF THE SAME FAMILY." 

Within the church, which was very plain, there was an east win- 
dow in memory of Governor Winthrop, given by his American de- 
scendants, and another smaller window given by Hon. Robert C. 
Winthrop, as also a brass relating to Adam. 

" What a strange contrast ! " said 
Mr. Van Wyck. " There is America^ 
great and rich and with a wonderful 
future before her, and here in this 
quietest of spots in England is a me- 
morial to one of the men who had a 
great deal to do with making America 
^ what she is. If it had not been for 
John Winthrop, it is not certain that 
^' the great emigration of 1630 would 
have taken place. Certainly Massa- 
chusetts and Boston look back to Win- 
throp as the most eminent of the founders of the commonwealth." 
" What a contrast, too," said Cousin Ned, " between Winthrop's 




John Winthrop. 



Q 

O 



O 



O 




LONDON TOWN. 147 

life in the wilderness of Massachusetts Bay and that of an English 
country gentleman in Groton, such as he was and his father and 
grandfather Adam." 

" There is another contrast," said Mr. Bodley. " Here in Groton 
John Winthrop was almost a hermit, like other Puritan gentlemen 
of his day. He led a very private life, reading his Bible, which had 
lately become the possession of the English people, avoiding the 
public discussions, and keeping out of the way of the court. In 
Boston he was constantly compelled to take the lead, and to be a 
busy man of affairs ; he read his Bible still, but he gave most of his 
time to the business of a magistrate and farmer and ship-builder." 

" Now, it's my turn," said Charles, gravely. " The presence of the 
Bodley and Van Wyck families at the tomb of their great ancestor's 
^ancestors is one of the most striking pictures in modern history." 



CHAPTER IX. 

LONDON TOWN. 

Back to Sudbury went the party, and so by train to London. 
They had but three or four days here now, and they meant to use 
them diligently, for they had yet one more journey to take before 
they settled down for the winter, as they had planned to do, in 
Paris. So very resolute were they, that the gentlemen, together 
with Charles and Sarah, got up the next morning at an uncommonly 
early hour and went to Covent Garden Market, in order to get a 
glimpse of that busy place at its freshest and busiest hour. They 
made little purchases of flowers and fruit, and it seemed almost as if 



148 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

they gathered the flowers in the garden, and picked the fruit from 
trees and vines, for the dew and coohiess were still upon them. A 
few persons like themselves were walking about the market, but 
most of the people were hucksters and small shopmen and women, 
who were loading carts and baskets, and making ready to scatter 
the contents of the market in numberless shops and street corners 
throughout this part of London. The men who carried heavy bur- 
dens upon their heads and shoulders were protected by curious 
cushions. Everywhere were young girls, sitting upon the curb- 
stone or upon steps, deftly tying up nosegays which a little later 
they would be selling in the London streets. 

" We should have come earlier," said Cousin Ned, " to have seen 
the busiest time, for as early as three o'clock the market is all astir 
with the carts and wagons which unload the vegetables and fruits 
brought in during the night from the country. I stayed once at 
the Tavistock Hotel here, and as my room looked out upon the 
market, I had to know what was going on." 

They carried back fruit and flowers to the ladies of the party, 
and sat down to breakfast with a hearty relish. It was rather late, 
indeed, when they were ready for the day's campaign, but then 
they consoled themselves with thinking that the rest of London also 
was late. 

" London is the most rapacious city," said Mr. Van W3^ck. " It 
steals your time and money and strength, and you seem to have 
nothing to show for it. Nevertheless, if I could get rid of my na- 
tionality I 'd rather live here than anywhere else in the world. 
Perhaps familiarity would make it commonplace, but it seems to me 
that I should never tire of just walking, or going on an omnibus, 
from Charing Cross to St. Paul's, every day." 



LONDON TOWN. 151 

" Yes," said his wife, ^' it is like looking at a panorama and mov- 
ing yourself at the same time. At any rate, if we cannot do it every 
day of our lives let us at least do it to-day." 

So they took an omnibus to Charing Cross, and then set out on 
foot to go to St. Paul's. The Strand begins there, and without 
changing its course becomes Fleet Street, after Temple Bar. 

" We are on a great highway," said Professor Adams to Charles 
and Sarah, who were walking on either side of him. '' The Strand 
was the old road which led along the river between the city of Lon- 
don proper and the king's palace at Westminster." 

'• I suppose," said Charles, "that they called it the Strand because 
it was a sort of beach." 

" Just so, and every once in a while, as you look down one of 
these cross streets, you can make out the Thames ; but of late years 
they have changed the bank of the river very much, by building a 
fine embankment where were old tumbled-down houses and wharves. 
The bishops used to live all along the water-side. That is, they had 
their town houses there, where they lived when they came up to 
London. The noblemen lived within the city walls, but the bishops 
were not thought to be in so much peril as the noblemen." 

" Up there is Covent Garden," said Sarah. 

" Yes, it was Convent Garden once, for it belonged to the Abbey 
of Westminster. After ^i while these inns of the bishops gave way 
to noblemen's houses. You think the street rather mean now, and 
I suppose it never was very magnificent, for the noblemen's houses 
made more use of the river-front than of the street-front. Indeed, 
people avoided the street, and made their way from Westminster to 
London city more by boats on the river, for the street was ill-paved, 
and foot passengers were likely to be jostled by the servants of the 



152 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

lords who thronged the place, and were usually much more msolent 
than their masters." 

" But where is Temple Bar ? " asked Charles. " I 've always seen 
pictures of Temple Bar between the Strand and Fleet Street. 
Does n't it mark the limit of the city of London ? " 

" Yes, and I think I miss nothing of the old London quite so much 
as Temple Bar. Do you see that column in the middle of the road- 
way ? Well, that shows where Temple Bar stood. They took down 
the old structure because it interfered with free travel in one of the 
most crowded parts of London." 

" But I should think," said Sarah, " that this column in the mid- 
dle of the street would be almost as much of a nuisance." 

" So should I," said Cousin Ned. '' The authorities seem to have 
put it up as an apology for taking down a historical monument, but 
it is an unsightly thing in itself and blocks the road. I should not 
be surprised if it were taken down before long." 

" Was Temple Bar itself so very old ? " asked Charles. 

" Long ago there was a bar here, or, rather, posts with chains ; 
then a wooden house was built with an archway through it; and 
after the great fire of London, the Temple Bar which recently stood 
here was built of stone. That was in 1670, and the architect de- 
signed it who built St. Paul's Cathedral, Sir Christopher Wren. 
Whenever the king or queen went into the city from Westminster, 
which was only on some great occasion, the gates in Temple Bar 
were closed, while the Lord Mayor stood with a sword on the city 
side. Heralds sounded, a parley was held, and then the gates were 
thrown open and the mayor delivered the sword to the sovereign, 
who graciously handed it back again/' 



LONDON TOWN. 



15& 



" I suppose," said Charles, " that if the mayor objected to letting 
the queen come through he would be handed over to the police." 

" Such customs usually are earnest once, then they become mere 
forms, and at last they are worn out like this one and thrown away." 

"■ But why was it called Temple Bar?" asked Sarah. "Is there 
any temple near by ? " 

•' To be sure," said Cousin Ned, " and I think we ought to step 
aside to see it." So, wheeling his whole party about, he led them by 
a little cross street toward the water-side, and to what is known 
as The Temple, where are halls for lawyers, and a singular old 
church. The Temple, as he explained, is a name given to what 




Exterior of the Temple Church in the time of James I. 



was once the property of the Knights Templars, who were among 
the Crusaders, and who built their church in imitation of the Holy 



156 



THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 



Sepulchre at Jerusalem. So long ago as 1185 the church was dedi- 
cated, and though it has passed through changes since, it is still 

substantially the same. 
They walked about 
within the church and 
looked at the recum- 
bent figures of the mail- 
clad Knights Templars. 
" These fellows," said 
Mr. Van Wyck, " were 
more picturesque ; but 
for my part I take more 
pleasure in thinking 
that Dr. Johnson and 
Oliver Goldsmith and 
Cowper and Charles 
Lamb lived within these 
precincts. They make 
the place more human 
to me than Knights 
Templars. I can't for 
the life of me help con- 
founding these historic 
srentlemen with the Ma- 
sonic societies of our 
Interior of the Temple Church, cUy, and thcy always 

seem to me to have the greatest amount of outside bravery with 
the least degree of heroic action." 

'■ Oh, you don't know what mighty things they do in secret, 
Philip," said Cousin Ned. 




LONDON TOWN. 157 

They returned to Fleet Street, and kept on their way to Ludgate 
Hill, where they saw St. Paul's Cathedral before them. 

" I often think of this place," said Mr. Bodley, " because it was 
the first great thing in London that I saw when I came here as a 
boy. I crossed in a sailing-vessel direct to London, just as we all 
did in our steamer, and landed at one of the docks. The fither of 
our first mate came aboard, and showed me the way by rail up to 
the city. I forget just where the station was, but I remember 
climbing one of the steep streets here with my head down. When 
I lifted it suddenly, there just above me was the dome of St. Paul's, 
and my heart gave a great leap." 

" How smooched the stone is ! " said Sarah. 

" It looks to me," said Mrs. Bodley, '' likp dark stone that has 
been struck by moonlight." 

" To be sure," said Sarah; " see how the white, moony streaks 
stick into the dark parts." 

" Dear me ! " said Mrs. Bodley, " what a niece I have to improve 
on my poetry." 

" Sir Christopher Wren was a genius," said Mr. Van Wyck, as 
they entered the building. " People say there is a great deal of 
sham about St. Paul's. All I can say is, that to the unlearned eye 
it is a most harmonious building. It is in the heart of a great com- 
mercial city, and he chose a form which is the embodiment of a city. 
Other cathedrals have had cities grow about them, but Wren was to 
place his building in the midst of one already grown. He took the 
Eoman arch and the dome, and constructed a building which sym- 
bolizes the power and luxury and dignity and wealth of London." 

" The proportions are certainly grand," said Cousin Ned, " and 
the buildinu: has the advantao-e of being the result of one man s 



158 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

thought. Most cathedrals are the growth of centuries, and the ideas 
of many men have been built into them." 

"It's a good place to see insular England in," said Mr. Bodley. 
*^ Look at all these marble sailors and soldiers who occupy the prem- 
ises. See the wounded men held up by their comrades and god- 
desses. What attitudes ! It makes one think of ' Pinafore.' " 

They walked about the church, and at length, with commendable 
zeal, set out to climb up to the dome. A long flight of steps, each 
about three inches high, brought them to the first landing-place, 
where was a corridor, from which led the library. " What a love of 
learning the clergy of the cathedral must have," said Mr. Bodley, 
" if they are willing to climb all these stairs to get a book ! " 

" Oh, see here," said Sarah, who had run on before the rest, and 
now stood delighted in front of a latticed window which looked out 
from the corridor upon the city over the roofs of houses. Here was 
a watchman's box, and he had hung half a dozen bird-cages in the 
alcove, and on the walls had pasted pictures from papers. The birds. 
were twittering and the light shone in on the pictures. 

"It's just like a prison up here," said Sarah, " and this man has 
made it as pretty as he could." 

Then there was a stone staircase about a foot wide, which was 
against the side of a wall, and hearing voices above, they all climbed 
the steps and found themselves, with one or two others, in a little 
chamber. There was an old man there, who hushed everybody, and 
then delivered a little lecture upon the clock and the bell of St. 
Paul's. The bell was tolled, he said, only at the death of one of 
the royal family, or of the Dean of the cathedral, the Lord Mayor 
of London, the Bishop of London, or the Archbishop of Canterbury. 
He took great satisfaction in the highly exclusive and aristocratic 



LONDON TOWN. 159 

character of his bell, and when his lecture was ended he ushered 
the company into another chamber. 

"Is that the ticking of the clock tnax we have heard?" asked 
Charles of his father as they went up. 

'' The clock is exactly like a house clock," explained the guide* 
who heard his question, but when they came into the chamber 
where the works were, the mysterious sound was made clear. A 
man was winding the clock. He stood with his back to them turn- 
ing a crank, and the sound was made by the ratchets. The clock 
was wound daily, and the winding took three quarters of an hour, 
the guide said. 

" Poor man," whispered Mrs. Van Wyck to Cousin Ned. " Just 
see that large stain on his back," pointing to the winder. 

"It is the result of years of perspiration, Phippy," said her cousin. 
^' I wonder they don't invent some machine. What Yankee church 
would be contented to have a man wind the clock for three quar- 
ters of an hour every day ! " 

They came down from the clock, recrossed the corridor, and went 
up-stairs again. The next landing let them into the Whispering 
Gallery, which runs around the interior of the dome. They were all 
driven like sheep half way around the dome, while the whisperer 
remained where he was. They put their ears to the wall, and heard 
the guide tell them just how high, broad, and long the building 
was. 

" That 's no secret," said Sarah. " He need n't have whispered 
that." 

" I mean to whisper something back," said Mr. Bodley, so he 
motioned to the guide, who put his ear down and heard Mr. Bod- 
ley's private message. 



160 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

"What did you say, Nathan?" asked his sister. 

"Ask the guide," said he; and Mrs. Van Wyck whispered: — 

" What did the gentleman say ? " and then hstened for his an- 
swer. 

"Well, he must have heard/' she said, when he had finished. 
" He tells me that there is a whispering gallery in the Whitefield 
Church in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and that when we were chil- 
dren we went there." 

" Did you really, mamma ? " asked Sarah. 

" To be sure ; your Uncle Nathan and Aunt Lucy and Cousin Ned 
were with me. We drove with grandfather and grandmother from 
Boston to Newburyport, where we visited your great-aunt Lucy." 

Their next stage was the stone gallery, from which they looked 
off a short distance through the fog, and down upon the pavement 
below, and then finally they went to the Golden Gallery, still higher, 
where there was scarcely room for more than their party. The 
yellow fog would hardly let them see across the river Thames. 
Above them was the ball, holding five or six people only, but the 
satisfaction to be had from going there appeared to be simply in 
saying they had been, and, as Charles sagely remarked, if they 
wanted to say anything tbey could say they had n't been. The 
guide said that a further tax of eighteen pence a head was laid on 
those who went up into the ball, not for the sake of the money, but 
to prevent people from going, since the climb was a little dangerous^ 
especially for ladies. They climbed by turns into a circular space 
railed about in the Golden Gallery and getting down on their hands 
and knees looked through a grated opening, a foot in diameter, 
down, down, three hundred feet to the pavement below. For they 
were exactly at the centre of the great dome. A rush of dustj^ air 



LONDON TOWN. 



161 



came up through the grating and made everything below seem to 
be half-floating in mist. 

They took their way down the long staircase again, and, to com- 




Houses of Parliament from the Thames. 



plete their exploration of the cathedral, descended to the crypt, 
where they saw the porphyry sarcophagus in which the Duke of 
Wellington lay buried ; and farther on, directly under the dome, the 



11 



162 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. ' 

sarcophagus of Nelson. Then, leaving the cathedral behind them, 
they went down Paul's Chain, a narrow lane leading to the Thames, 
and took one of the little steamers which puff up and down the 
river. On the deck of the steamer they sat or stood, and looked at 
the great city through which they were passing, at the backs of 
houses, at the broad embankment, and at the bridges, crowded with 
people, under which their little craft shot. 

By and by they came in sight of the Houses of Parliament, and 
indeed the return by the river was planned by Cousin Ned, because 
he knew that thus they would get the fullest and fairest view. 
The great Victoria Tower and the Clock Tower rose finely before 
them, and gave to the buildings their dignity and grace. 

" 1 am a heathen woman and an American," said Mrs. Van Wyck, 
calmly, " and the Capitol at Washington is to me a far grander build- 
mg. 

" None of us who have seen both will dispute that, Phippy," said 
Cousin Ned. " There is no such composition in this pile. Here 
one window, one arch, are repeated in long lines, and the effect is 
very unimaginative. The towers help to redeem it; but on the 
whole it is simply a weak repetition of details which are copied by 
a sort of schoolmaster architect. They have better architects in 
England now than they had when the Houses of Parliament were 
built, and it is a pity that they had not waited a generation." 

They left the boat at Westminster Bridge and paid a visit to the 
Houses of Parliament. Parliament was not in session, and so they 
went about the halls and chambers, looking at the paintings of Eng- 
lish history which adorned the walls, and wondering at the smallness 
of the chambers in which the Lords and Commons sat." 

'• I suppose there is not much America in this building," said Mrs. 
Van Wyck. 



LONDON TOWN. 163 

*' Not in the building as it stands, which was begun in 1840 ; 
though, to be sure, there have been debates here, as in our late war, 
which had a good deal to do with the United States. The old 
Houses of Parliament were partly burned and partly* incorporated 
in this new buildino;." 

" I should like to see the place where the throne stood from which 
George the Third announced the Independence of the United 
States," said Mrs. Bod ley. 

" So should I," said her husband. " Indeed, except to be living 
now, and in the midst of this interesting family of mine, I should 
like best to have been Elkanah Watson when he heard the king 
give it up." 

" Who was Elkanah Watson ? " asked Charles. 

" He was a lively American merchant who was in London at the 
time, and has left a record of it in his memoirs." 

And here I might, if I chose, declare that Professor Adams had 
the book in his pocket, and read the passage aloud, but that would 
not be true, or probable. What really took place was, that Mr. 
Bodley gave an account from memory, but as I who chronicle the 
doings of this estimable family have the book at my elbow, I prefer 
to copy from it exactly what Elkanah Watson did say, even though 
I thus appear to interrupt my narrative. 

"Soon after my arrival in England," he says, "having won at 
the insurance office one hundred guineas on the event of Lord 
Howe's relieving Gibraltar, and dining the same day with Copley, 
the distinguished painter, who was a Bostonian by birth, I deter- 
mined to devote the sum to a splendid portrait of myself The 
painting was finished in most admirable style, except the back- 
ground; which Copley and I designed to represent a ship, bearing to 



164 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

America the intelligence of the acknowledgment of Independence, 
with a sun just rising upon the Stripes of the Union, streaming 
from her gaff. All was complete, save the flag, which Copley did 
not deem prudent to hoist under present circumstances, as his 
gallery is a constant resort of the royal family and the nobility. I 
dined with the artist on the glorious 5th of December, 1782, after 
listening with him to the sjDeech of the king, formally recognizing 
the United States of America as in the rank of nations. Previous 
to dining, and immediately after our return from the House of 
Lords, he invited me into his studio, and there, with a bold hand, a 
master's touch, and I believe an American heart, attached to the 
ship the Stars and Stripes. This was, I imagine, the first American fia^ 
hoisted in old England. 

"At an early hour on the 5th of December, 1782, in conformity 
with previous arrangements, I was conducted by the Earl of Ferrers 
to the very entrance of the House of Lords. At the door he whis- 
pered, ' Get as near the throne as you can ; fear nothing.' I did so, 
and found myself exactly in front of it, elbow to elbow with the cel- 
ebi^ated admiral Lord Howe. The Lords were promiscuously stand- 
ing as I entered. It was a dark and foggy day ; and the windows 
being elevated and constructed in the antiquated style, with leaden 
bars to contain the diamond-cut panes of glass, increased the gloom. 
The walls were hung with dark tapestry, representing the defeat of 
the Spanish Armada. I had the pleasure of recognizing in the crowd 
of spectators Copley, and West the painter, with some American 
ladies. I saw, also, some dejected American Royalists in the group. 

" After waiting nearly two hours, the approach of the king was 
announced by a tremendous roar of artillery. He entered by a. 
■^mall door on the left of the throne, and immediately seated him- 




km 




LONDON TOWN. 167 

self upon the chair of state, in a graceful attitude, with his right foot 
resting upon a stool. He was clothed in royal robes. Apparently 
agitated, he drew from his pocket the scroll containing his speech. 
The Commons were summoned, and, after the bustle of their en- 
trance had subsided, he proceeded to read his speech. I was near 
the king, and watched with intense interest every tone of his voice 
and expression of his countenance. It was to me a moment of thrill- 
ing and dignified exultation. After some general and usual re- 
marks, he continued, — 

"'I lost no time in giving the necessary orders to prohibit the 
further prosecution of offensive war upon the Continent of North 
America. Adopting, as my inclination will always lead me to do, 
with decision and effect whatever I collect to be the sense of my 
Parliament and my people, I have pointed all my views and meas- 
ures in Europe, as in North America, to an entire and cordial ijecon- 
ciliation with the Colonies. Finding it indispensable to the attain- 
ment of this object, I did not hesitate to go to the full length of the 
powers vested in me, and offer to declare them ' — here he paused, 
and was in evident agitation, either embarrassed in reading his 
speech by the darkness of the room, or affected by a very natural 
emotion. In a moment he resumed, ' and offer to declare them free 
and independent States. In thus admitting their separation from the 
crown of these kingdoms, I have sacrificed every consideration of 
my own to the wishes and opinions of my people. I make it my 
humble and ardent prayer to Almighty God, that Great Britain 
may not feel the evils which might result from so great a dismem- 
berment of the empire, and that America may be free from the ca- 
lamities which have formerly proved in the mother country how es- 
sential monarchy is to the enjoyment of constitutional liberty. Re- 



168 



THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 



ligion, language, interests, and affection may, and I hope will, yet 
prove a bond of permanent union between the two countries.' 

" It is remarked that George III. is celebrated for reading his 

speeches in a distinct, free, and 
impressive manner. On this 
occasion he was evidently em- 
barrassed. He hesitated, 
choked, and executed the pain- 
ful duties of the occasion with 
an ill grace that does not be- 
long to him. I cannot ade- 
quately portray my sensations 
in the progress of this address : 
every artery beat high, and 
swelled with my proud Amer- 
ican blood. It was impossible 
not to revert to the opposite 
shores of the Atlantic, and to 
review in my mind's eye the misery and woe I had myself witnessed 
in several stages of the contest, and the wide-spread desolation re- 
sulting from the stubbornness of this very king, now so prostrate, 
but who had turned a deaf ear to our humble and importunate pe- 
titions for relief Yet I believe that George III. acted under what 
he felt to be the high and solemn claims of constitutional duty. 

" The great drama was now closed. The Battle of Lexington ex- 
hibited its first scene. The Declaration of Independence w^as a lofty 
and glorious event in its progress ; and the ratification of our Inde- 
pendence by the king consummated the spectacle in triumph and 
exultation. This successful issue of the American Revolution will. 




LONDON TOWN. 169 

in all probability, influence eventually the destinies of the whole hu- 
man race. Such had been the sentiment and language of men of 
the profoundest sagacity and prescience during and anterior to the 
conflict, in all appeals to the people. In leaving the house, I jostled 
Copley and West, who, I thought, were enjoying the rich political 
repast of the day, and noticing the anguish and despair depicted on 
the long visages of our American Tories." 

^' Speaking of pictures," said Mr. Van Wyck, " I have often been 
interested at seeing how the early impressions which I formed when 
a boy through seeing pictures have been confirmed or modified 
afterward ; and how I take a lively interest in certain things because 
I had a childish association with them. There are pictures in the 
galleries which I look at longer than their real value might de- 
mand, simply because we had engravings of them at home." 

"Just so, Philip," said his wife. "Nathan, don't you remember 
how when we were children we had a picture gallery, admission one 
pin, in the little library at Roseland, and hung engravings by 
clothes-pins upon lines? " 

" To be sure. Perfectly well." 

" Well, there was a picture which fascinated me, ' Death of Lord 
Chatham,' by West, I think, where Lord Chatham is tumbling into 
the arms of his friends in the House of Lords. I have thought of 
it since we came here, and I own that it is one of my regrets not to 
be able to see the place where Lord Chatham fell. But I suppose 
I should have wished to see the peers in their robes, and the whole 
grand tableau." 

" A most American wish, Phippy. We have a certain proprie- 
torship in Lord Chatham. It was he who rallied the English in the 
great conflict between France and England in America, and if it 
had not been for him, history might have taken another turn." 



170 



THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 



" He was a good American himself," said Professor Adams. " He 
believed in the people and was ready to trust them." 

"But why did he come to the House of Lords to die?" asked 
Sarah. " I should think it would have been more convenient to die 
at home." 

" He died at his post, Sarah," said her father. " France and 
America had just formed an alliance, and the English lords who 
were opposed to the king's policy toward America were for turning 
round, acknowledging the independence of the United States, and 
so meeting France single-handed. So, on the 7th of April, 1778, the 
Duke of Richmond moved in the House of Lords that all troops 
should be removed from America and a peace concluded, but as 
there could be no peace without a recognition of the independence 

of the states, that would follow 
as a matter of course. Lord 
Chatham was very ill, but he was 
determined to go down and op- 
pose the motion, for much as he 
wanted peace with America, he 
thought it cowardly to get it 
in this way. He had fought 
France all his days, and he would 
not have England play a timid 
part now. So he was half car- 
') ried to the House, and made a 
(/ o-reat speech, and asked in it 
Wa^^J if the country which seventeen 
William Pitt, Lord Chatham. ycars bcforc was the terror of 

the world had stooped so low now as to tell its old enemy : * Take 





CHARLES DICKENS READING A STORY. 



LONDON TOWN. 173 

all we have, only give us peace.' The Duke of Richmond replied, 
and Chatham rose again to make another speech, but suddenly he 
gasped, laid his hand upon his heart, and sank back dying." 

" Did he die there ? " 

" No, he was carried to a house in Downing Street, where I think 
he died, but I am not sure." 

They left the Houses of Parliament, and had yet time for a visit 
to Westminster Abbey. They entered by the little porch which ad- 
mits at once to the Poets' Corner. They had been before in the 
Abbey on Sunday at service, and their visit now was especially to 
this little sanctuary. 

" Why should the poets be put in a corner ? " asked Charles, with 
a show of indignation. 

" And why should they be by the backdoor of the church ? " de- 
manded Sarah. 

"Isn't it better so?" asked Mr. Bodley. "This is the great 
English house of fame. Here lie kings, statesmen, warriors, painters, 
and poets, and here every day are prayer and praise. In the world 
at large poets live very much at one side, out of the noise and 
crowd, and I think it is very well that they should have this quiet 
corner to themselves in death." 

" Here is one of the latest," said Mr. Van Wyck, " who scarcely 
lived in a corner." They looked where he pointed, and read the 
name of Charles Dickens. 

" At any rate," he went on, " he was public enough in America. 
You heard him read, Nathan, did you not ? " 

" To be sure. I remember him with his Kttle stand, and his red 
morocco book in his hand, and nosegay in his button-hole, and gold 
chain and general show appearance. How carefullj^ he made him- 
self up, and all his apparatus." 



174 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

"I am certain he liked it," said Mr. Van Wyck ; " he was feverish 
and restless. Crowds became necessary to him." 

" What a crowd he created himself ! '' said Mr. Bodley. " I 
should think he would have been haunted by the recollections of 
the hundreds of men, women, and children who had flown out of 
his head." 

" Perhaps he was trying to get away from them," said his wife, 
" when he read to people." 

" 1 remember him in a different way," said Cousin Ned. " Once 
when I was in England I took a little excursion to Rochester, and 
walked out to Gadshill to see the outside of Dickens's house. Im- 
agine my delight, as I walked by, and peeped in through the shrub- 
bery, at seeing the great novelist himself standing in an easy atti- 
tude in his porch. He looked very much more like a man whom 
one would wish to know. He wore a soft hat and held a book in his 
hand, while he leaned against one of the pillars of his porch. He 
looked as if he had been reading to himself and had come out for a 
moment to get a breath of fresh air." 

" That was worth seeing," said Mrs. Bodley. " I should like 
to have seen him at home, but my thought of him is very much 
like that of the others. I always think of him as a public char- 
acter." 

" How much more we know about him than we do about Shake- 
speare ? " said Mr. Van Wyck. '• They both created a multitude of 
men and women, and yet Shakespeare is so absolutely unknown 
that people are disputing whether he was the author of his own 
plays. Everybody knows Dickens and his household affairs, and 
what he thought about his friends and enemies." 

" Is n't it partly the difference in the times ? " asked Mrs. Bod- 
ley. 




DICKENS IN THE PORCH AT GAD'S HILL 



LONDON TOWN. 17T 

" Yes, but more the difference in the men and in the sort of cre- 
ation they were engaged in. Dickens's people seem to have been 
begun from the outside and to have struck a little way in, while 
Shakespeare's people were livmg souis who made their own faces 
and bodies. How perfectly possible it is to have accurate pictures 
by artists of Dickens's characters, and how unsatisfactory and stagey 
are almost all the illustrations of Shakespeare's heroes and hero- 
ines." 

" I have sometimes thought," said Cousin Ned, " that Shake- 
speare's characters can be adequately rendered only by sculpture. 
There one gets the figure and the soul in the most ideal represen- 
tation. But Dickens's characters all need their particular dress and 
accessories. They should be painted, or rather drawn, in black and 
white." 

" Let 's go to Gadshill," said Charles. 

" You 'd see nothing but a house which no longer belongs to the 
family," said his father. 

" Well, most of our historical monuments come to that," said the 
boy. 

" I have a better thought," said Sarah. " Let 's go home to din- 
ner ; " and the entire party were ready to agree to that, for they 
had had a long and full day. But what can one do in London,, 
when his days are few ? 
IS 



178 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

CHAPTER X. 

A LITTLE CHURCH. 

At length it was needful to leave London, if they would make the 
few excursions which remained in their plan before they bade 
good-by to Cousin Ned at Liverpool, and thus on Monday, the 19th 
of September, they took the West of England express, and, making 
but one stop on the way, reached Salisbury, eighty-one miles from 
London. As they stepped out upon the platform, there were their 
■old friends, the English Bodleys, waiting to welcome them. It was 
in Salisbury that Mr. John Bodley and his two children lived, and 
letters had passed between the ffimilies, for Mr. Bodley, though he 
could not entertain the party at his house, wished to do the honors 
of the little town. 

"You are to come to us for dinner, at any rate," said he. "I 
only wish my little house were big enough to hold you for the 
night, if you really will only stay one night in Salisbury. But I have 
arranged for you at the Red Lion," and so to the Red Lion they all 
went until our friends could make themselves ready to go to dinner 
at- the English Bodleys. Mr. John Bodley was a widower who lived 
quietly with his two children, and gave most of his time evidently 
to their education. 

" You see," as he explained to Mr. Nathan Bodley, " I have quite 
enough to live on comfortably in a little country town like this, and 
I really think I can do nothing for my country or my children that 
is worth more than to give these two a sound education, and teach 
them to be good citizens. If I turn them over to other people, 1 




!iiil21 



A LITTLE CHURCH. 181 

don't see what I should do myself. So, if you ask what my occupa- 
tion is, why, I suppose it 's just being a father." 

" What are you going to be, John ? " Charles asked him as they 
walked towards Mr. Bodley's house. 

" I think I shall be an architect," said he ; "I want to be, and 
papa is thinking about it. What do you mean to be?" 

" I have n't made up my mind yet : I rather think I shall go West." 

" Well, but what shall you do when you get there ? Hunt buffa- 
loes, and camp out? or dig for gold? " 

"Perhaps I shall grow up with the country and be a senator." 
John looked at him with admiration. 

" Why, that 's very much the same as being in the House of 
Lords, is n't it ? " 

'" Oh, it 's a good deal more ; a lord only stands for an old family, 
but a senator represents a great state. Think of being one of two 
senators for a state bigger than England, Scotland, and Ireland put 
together ! " John did think of it, and being a remarkably sober 
boy he kept silence. 

" There is one thing," said Mrs. Van Wyck at dinner, " which I 
should like to see at Salisbury, or near Salisbury." 

" And what is that ? " asked Mr. John Bodley. " The Shepherd 
of Salisbury Plain, or Stonehenge ? " 

" Neither, though I should be glad to see Stonehenge. No. I 
have always had a great affection for George Herbert, the poet, and 
I should like to see his little church at Bemerton, if it 's not too far 
away." 

" Now that is just what I was meaning to propose," said Mr. John 
Bodley. " Why should we not all go over there to morning ser- 
vice ? It 's only a mile or so away, and they have daily prayer." 



]82 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

"Exactly what I should like. 1 thought it could not be very far, 
for I remember that Herbert used to walk over to Salisbury to the 
cathedral." 

" Do you remember, Phippy," asked her brother, " a visit we 
made to Aunt Martha, in Hartford, when we were children, and I was 
walking to New York with Cousin Ned, and how mother told us 
about Herbert and his helping the carter ? It is curious how such 
little things will stay by one. That cool dining-room on a hot Sun- 
day, and mother telling us the story and singing to us, come back 
as vividly to my mind as if it had happened yesterday." 

" I remember perfectly, and how uncle told us the kind of Sun- 
days that Puritan children kept." 

So they all went to Bemerton the next morning before break- 
fast. They followed a pretty lane, part of the way by the river 
.side, past thatched cottages and old houses, and as they drew near 
to the church they heard the little bell in the little belfry calling the 
little congregation to prayer in the little church. It was the merest 
dot of a church. A low porch admitted them, and an old door, no 
longer used, opposite the porch, led into the churchyard beyond. 
A dozen or fifteen people, many of them children, were there beside 
themselves, and the service was read by the old vicar, an aged man 
with a broken voice, while one of his family led the singing from 
behind a harmonium. So large a party could hardly escape notice ; 
and as they lingered after service about the quaint church, the lady 
who had sat at the harmonium came forward and spoke to Mrs. 
Bodley. 

"You have come oat, I suppose, to see George Herbert's church.' 

" Yes, and to worship in it," said Mrs. Bodley with a smile. 
" We are all great lovers of Herbert. He lies buried here, does he 
not?" 



A LITTLE CHURCH. 183 

" He is buried under the altar. He was so lowly that he asked 
for no memorial, but twenty years ago Mr. Pigott built the church 
which you see yonder in place of the old one which had fallen into 
ruins." 

" Then this is not the parish church ? " 

" No. We have morning prayer here, and always keep it open." 

" And is this house opposite the one which Herbert occupied ? " 

" Yes, though it has been enlarged since his day, and the front is 

new. The tablet in front is the one which you remember Isaak 

Walton says Herbert placed in the chimney." They had all drawn 

near while this conversation was going on, and now read the lines : 

" If thou chance for to find 
A new house to thy niiud, 

And built without thy cost, 
Be good to the poor, 
As God gives thee store, 
And then my labor 's not lost." 

" Will you not come in and see the garden ? " asked the lady. 

" You are very good," said Mrs Bodley, hesitating. " But we are 
rather a large party." 

" Oh, never mind that. We are always glad to have lovers of 
Herbert come in." So they followed their hostess, who led them 
throuo-h the house into the charmino- (rarden. She showed them 
the rear of the house, of stone and brick, much as Herbert had left 
it, except for more abundant vines. There was a lovely lawn, and 
at the foot ran the limpid, grassy river where Isaak Walton used to 
fish. Near the bank was an ancient medlar-tree, well incased with 
metal, but still bearing fruit. It had been planted by Herbert, and 
here on this pleasant grass-land he had taken his walks, and no 
doubt chanted to himself his quaint verses. Beyond the river were 
meadows, and over the trees rose the spire of Salisbury Cathedral. 



184 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

" Did you ever visit Layton-Ecclesia; which Walton says was the 
first parish where Herbert lived ? " asked Professor Adams of the 
lady. 

" No. I remember the name only." 

" I looked for it once, but had little time, and suspect it may have 
wholly disappeared. It was said to be near Spalding, in Lincoln- 
shire, and I have pleased myself with thinking that when Herbert 
was there, he knew John Cotton, of Boston, in Lincolnshire.'* 

" Ah, then, you are no doubt Americans ? " 

^^ Most of us," said he with a smile, " and the rest good enough 
English people to be." 

" Herbert must have had a kindly feeling for America," she said, 
" Do you not remember his lines, — 

" ' Religion stands on tiptoe in our land, 

Ready to pass to the American strand ' " ? 

" Yes," said he, eagerly, " and I have often thought that he had 
Cotton in his mind when he wrote them. Cotton, you know, was 
the rector of St. Botolph's, in old Boston, and was teacher over the 
first church in our Boston. It was partly for this, it is thought by 
some, that Boston got its name." 

'' America is ver}^ much in our minds now," said she, sadly, " since 
the lamentable attempt on your President's life." 

" But he is better, we hope," said Mr. Van Wyck. " At least 
the news yesterday seemed more favorable. I have not heard to- 
day." 

" Let us hope so. He is a brave man, and his wife must be a 
noble woman. They have done more to make England know and 
understand America than all the books that have been written by 
English travelers." 



A LITTLE CHURCH. 185 

They bade their kind hostess good morning and walked back by 
the lane, with appetites sharpened for breakfast. Mr. John Bodley 
and his children promised to call for them later, and show them the 
cathedral, and so they parted at the corner of the street that led to 
the cathedral green. It was a short distance only to the Red Lion ; 
just before they reached the inn, a piece of white paper fluttering 
from the post of a doorway caught their eye, for the word Garfield 
was written in large letters. They stopped. The paper was a brief 
bulletin issued from the local newspaper which had its office up- 
stairs, and stating that the American Legation in London had re- 
ceived a dispatch at six o'clock that morning with intelligence of 
the President's death the night before. They looked at each other, 
but could not trust themselves to speak. All summer long they 
had followed the varying record of his illness with alternate hope 
and discouragement. It had been the first thing at morning and 
the last at night, and when the little company gathered for family 
prayers, they never failed to remember the President and his family 
and their country. 

They breakfasted almost in silence, and when Mr. Bodley came 
with his children to take them to the cathedral, he also had heard 
the news. 

" I am glad we are going to the cathedral," said Mrs. Van Wyck. 
'" I really could not see any sights this morning, but I think I could 
go to church." 

They had a few minutes before service in which to let their eyes 
rest on the beautiful cathedral. Its charm is threefold. It was all 
built, except the spire, within fifty years of its first stones, and thus 
lias a unity lacking in other cathedrals ; then its spire is the highest 
in England, and singularly beautiful, and the cathedral, unlike many 



186 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

others, is in a park of several hundred acres, so that the surround- 
ings are of the most delightful character. The beautiful, reserved, 
Early English style renders the building a great rest to the eye ; 
and in the interior there is a chaste simplicity and a beauty of color 
obtained by dark marble columns which make one think of it as the 
most graceful of cathedrals. Everything is in perfect unison ; the 
cloisters surround a square of living green used as a quiet burial- 
place, and the quiet which reigns in the place is the quiet of peace 
and not of death. 

It was a great comfort to them all to join in the morning service, 
with its prayer for persons under affliction. They knew that the 
English people about them had in their minds the same persons as 
themselves ; and they knew that all over England that morning, in 
cathedral and parish church, the same prayer was going up, with the 
same thoughts. 

"It's trouble that brings people together," said Mr. John Bodley 
as they walked slowly away from the cathedral. " We English 
people really care more about Americans now than we do just be» 
cause your crops and ours may happen to be very abundant." 

" Yes," said Mr. Van Wyck. " Nowadays, when the telegraph goes 
everywhere, nations are more like single persons than once ; and the 
same feelings which two persons have for being brought together, 
nations may have when brought face to face. The telegraph wires, 
are the nerves of the nation." 

The news of the morning hung over them, and somehow seemed 
to make their own party more serious than it might have been. 

" You must come and see us in America," said Charles and Sarah 
to John and Maro-aret. 

'' Perhaps I will come out when you are senator," said John. 




.i| j I i3i I , I h Ml* 1 1 111 ii I > n 111 1 1 ' I iiiMJ 1 i» MP m» ii ' I » m I n w I i \i m I i I II III M iiii ii yiiiiiiin| |iii|||i[|i|i|i| ii'iij Mi|i| 



A LOOK THROUGH WINDOWS. 189 

^* And design a house for me in Washington," said Charles. 

" But jou are not all going directly back to America, are you ? " 
:asked Mr. John Bodley, 

" I am the only one going now," said Professor Adams. " The 
rest have one more year, poor things, of wandering from home." 

" Oh, then we may see you again." 

" Not at all unlikely," said Mr. Van Wyck. 



CHAPTER XL 



A LOOK THROUGH WINDOWS. 



From Salisbury our friends went by easy stages to Manchester, 
where they stayed a day or two, and to Chester, which they reached 
Friday afternoon, the 23d of September. 

" If we entered England at Liverpool," said Mr. Bodley, " we 
should undoubtedly have come straight to Chester, as all good 
Americans do, and so have seen the old town before we saw any- 
thing new. Now we have seen so much antiquity, that I doubt if 
the children will be as much impressed as they would have been 
otherwise." 

" Oh, I've always heard of Chester," said Sarah. " It is where 
the sidewalks go through the second stories, is n't it ? " 

" Exactly," said her father, " and where you can walk all round 
the town on a stone wall." 

There was day enough left for a ramble about Chester, and a 
ramble was just what they desired. For the interest in Chester is 



190 THE ENGLISH BOD LEY FAMILY. 

satisfied by what the eye takes in as one passes along the streets. 
Most of the walk was taken through the Rows. By a flight of steps 
they would mount to the long, covered piazza, so to speak, which 
passed by shop windows, and gave glimpses of passages leading 
off. The streets were not bridged, but one could turn corners and 
still keep above the pavement. There was an irregularity about 
the Rows which added to the charm. Either the streets rose 
and fell, or the arcades were not on a level, for they would some- 
times find tliemselves only a foot or two above the pavement, and 
again a dozen or twenty feet up. The arcades were interrupted 
now and then by buildings which disregarded the arrangement, 
and were perhaps of later construction. Still, in many cases, the 
houses which conformed to the arcades seemed almost new. 

They made the circuit of the town also on top of the old wall, a 
walk of nearly two miles. The wall does not make any marked 
separation in the town in the main ; sometimes forming the outer 
circle, sometimes cutting through the heatt of the town. The 
flagged top of the wall is about five feet in width ; a parapet on one 
side, and a hedge on the other, in some places marks the line, but 
occasionally the wall is flush with the street, and scarcely more than 
a sidewalk. They visited King Charles's tower, from which he saw 
his army defeated on Rowton Moor ; and from the wall itself, in its 
circuit of the town, they had pretty views in the afternoon light of 
the country lying about. 

The errand, however, which brought them to Chester was above 
all to visit Eaton Hall, the seat of the Duke of Westminster, for 
there, as they had heard, was a most interesting sight in the win- 
dows of a chapel which the Duke had been building. 

" Tt will be worth walking out to see," said Professor Adams, " if 



A LOOK THROUGH WINDOWS. 191 

all that I hear from a friend is true," and so they trudged out over 
Grosvenor Bridge, and through the park attached to Eaton Hall. 
They were upon a carriage road which ran for three or four miles, 
"winding a little but almost level, and passing by no notable planta- 
tions. 

"If the Duke has to drive over this road every time he goes to or 
comes from his house," said Mrs. Van Wyck, " I should think he 
would find it a tedious journey. It is pleasant enough for us to 
walk once or twice, but I would rather have an unpretentious Eng- 
lish lane." 

" It is part of the penalty which he pays for being a duke," said 
her husband. 

" This duke has a very good reputation as a man of public spirit," 
said Professor Adams. " He has done a great deal for Chester, but 
I think I envy him most for his ability to cause the production of 
such a work as I am told these windows in his chapel are." 

" Who is the artist, Ned ? " 

" He is a Mr. Shields, whose work, I believe, has not been exhib- 
ited very often." 

They found the chapel unfinished, but, perhaps, because it was 
Saturday afternoon no one appeared to be at work upon it, and they 
had their afternoon to themselves in it; and as the rain began to 
come down in a torrent, they were glad of shelter, and lingered 
longer even than they might otherwise have done before the beau- 
tiful windows. 

" You must know the design of the whole," said Cousin Ned, " be- 
fore you can understand well each window. It is intended to trans- 
late the Te Deum Laudamus into picture. When the whole work 
is complete, the six chancel windows will represent the central facts 



192 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

in the divine order, namely: Paradise, Nativity, Crucifixion, Ascen-- 
sion, Pentecost, Judgment. Now turn your back upon the chancel, 
look directly west to the great window above the gallery. That is^ 
where the ' glorious company of the apostles ' begins, and it contin- 
ues along the north, as far as the transept. On the opposite wall, the 
south wall, where there are no windows, there is to be a series of 
mosaics, representing the goodly fellowship of the prophets ; in the 
transepts are to be the ' noble army of martyrs ; ' while on both walls 
and in the transepts, in a lower series, the ' holy church throughout 
all the world ' is to appear." 

" What a splendid conception," said Mr. Van Wyck, " and what 
I admire especially in it is the fact that all these noble figures are 
expressive of praise." 

"Exactly," said Cousin Ned, "and simple as this seems, it really 
makes the difference in religious art between great work and work 
which is merety indicative of the artist's cleverness. Why, Mr. 
Shields has made his work praise God, instead of constantly suggest- 
ing to us to praise Mr. Shields." 

" It seems to me," said Mrs. Bodley, " that the trouble with a 
good many of our memorial windows is that they honor the person 
who is commemorated, instead of suggesting how that person hon- 
ored God." 

They looked long and delightedly at these great figures, and the 
more they looked, the more completely did the design seem to ef- 
fect its purpose of leading their thoughts to the central object of 
praise. 

" That is true religious art," said Mr. Van Wyck, as they walked 
back through the long avenue, to Chester. " It is in the spirit of 
the great masters ; for religious art ought to teach us and lead our 



A LOOK THROUGH WINDOWS. 19S 

minds to God, just as surely as great landscape art should make us 
know and admire nature more." 

"I am glad to have seen it," said his sister. "I only wish we' 
had such work in America." 

" I should like to design a set of windows for a New England 
church," said Professor Adams. " I would put a little American 
Christianity into them. Then people would look at them and think 
of them as something more than a copy of old pictures." 

Our friends had one Sunday left together, and they found it a 
perfect day. When evening came, they went to the service in the 
cathedral, as they had also in the morning, but they were to have 
an unlooked for and great pleasure. When they entered, a little 
before the hour, they found the cathedral full, and numbers, like 
themselves, stood tln^ough much of the service. The sight was very 
impressive. The long line of gas jets above the arches on either 
side, reaching, indeed, the length of the cathedral, gave a beautiful 
light ; the procession of choristers and priests, and then the mass of 
white in the centre, the crowds filling the nave, choir, and transepts 
— all, with the noble architecture filled the mind ; but when the 
organ sounded and the sweet voices joined in chorus, one could see 
that this was needed to complete the effect. Surely the organ is 
never heard to such advantage as among the arches and under the 
vault of a great cathedral. 

The sermon was by a young clergyman who was blind, and an ad- 
mirable sermon it was, with some touching references to the death 
of the President. But when the service was ended, and the proces- 
sion had returned to the vestry, a few people only left the cathedral, 
for it was customary for the organist to remain in his seat and play 
one sweet or solemn piece after another. The people moved about 

13 



194 THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. 

the great building somewhat, but gradually settled down again to 
listen to the music. At length there was a short pause ; then the 
organ sounded again, this time a funeral march from one of Beetho. 
ven's symphonies. As the chords swelled through the arches of the 
cathedral, one person here and another there rose in his place and 
stood ; a sudden thought ran through the congregation, and then 
the mighty throng followed the impulse, and stood with bowed 
heads. Our little party had not been the first to take in the scene ; 
but in a moment Mrs. Van Wyck whispered to her husband, with 
tears in her eyes, " Philip, it is for the President." So it was. It 
was a spontaneous burst of feeling, and our Americans, perhaps the 
only ones from their country in the cathedral, knew that another 
nation was standing with them, as it were, by the open grave and 
sharing in their grief. 

" I shall always think differently of England after this," said Pro- 
fessor Adams, as they walked back to their inn. '• How much such 
an incident means to us who have witnessed it." 

" Yes," said Mr. Van Wyck. " We have come back here to look 
for foot-prints of the first Americans ; but I do not think that Auster- 
field and Groton draw us to England nearly as much as one throb 
of common feelino; like that we have felt this evenino." 

The next day the party went to Liverpool to see Professor Adams 
off on his steamer for America. That gentleman needed to return 
to his college duties, but the rest had a year still before them in 
Europe. 

" You all wish you were coming with me," said he, as they stood 
tocrether on the deck of the steamer. " You know vou are miser- 
able at parting from me and being obliged to stay in Europe. Only 
think what it would be if you were doomed to stay here forever^, and 



A LOOK THROUGH WINDOWS. 195 

only allowed to visit America occasionally. Suppose you were com- 
pelled to be English people ! " 

" I never thought of it before," said Charles, " but one can't be 
just what he happens to want to be. How should I go to work to 
be a Frenchman ? " 

" You could n't be," said Sarah. " The nearest thing you could 
do would be to marry a Frenchwoman, and then your children 
would be half French, and if they married French girls " — 

" They might not all be boys," objected Charles. 

" Then their children," went on Sarah, " would be three quarters 
French, and so in a few generations they would be as much French 
as I am American. The Dutch color is not quite washed out of me 
yet. I am sure I felt at home in Holland." 

" Well, I pity people who can't be whole Americans," said 
Charles, loftily. Just then there was a general movement. Pas- 
sengers were bidding their friends good-by, and those were going 
ashore who were not going to America. Our friends bade their 
Cousin Ned a hearty good-by, and went ashore. They watched 
the steamer as she steamed away, and then turned back to their 
hotel. 

" How glad we shall be just a year from now ! " sighed Charles. 



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